Come next semester and students will be greeted with welcome changes in Panjab University. Firstly, a software, developed by University Institute of Engineering and Technology (UIET) Director Professor B S Sohi, will be installed in all the departments to help students check their attendance online. The software is already in place at the UIET department, which is currently collecting contact details of parents of students studying at the department in order to keep them informed about their wards’ performance. At a media conference held on Friday at Panjab University, Vice-Chancellor Professor R C Sobti said, “We wish to have complete transparency in the system. Therefore, we have decided to put up the attendance online for all the departments to avoid any discrepancies.” This decision would mean that every department would be required to have a website and which will have to be updated regularly. Using this system, students would be given ID numbers with which they could know the status of their attendance every time they log on to their department’s website. Announcing another change in policy, Professor Sobti said that from the next session, no changes would be considered in the list of internal marks sent by various affiliated colleges. Colleges would be required to put up a list of the internal assessment marks being awarded to students for at least three days before sending the final list to the university. Justifying the decision, Professor Sobti said, “A lot of chaos is witnessed in the university because of colleges sending and then re-sending the internal assessment marks. This, in turn, delays the announcement of results. Any change in the marks once sent would not be entertained at all next academic session onwards.” Asked what was the biggest achievement of the university in the almost coming-to-an-end year, Professor Sobti said, “The decision to have all departments declare the results for the PhD thesis within a stipulated time of 120 days (the ones failing to do so will face action) is by far the greatest achievement of 2008.”
