Anna University plans to give identity cards to all teaching staff in the nearly 600 affiliated engineering colleges and institutions in the State from this academic year following allegations of duplication of faculty by institutions that run several colleges.
The university will provide a photo identification card to all faculty, which should be displayed all the time, said officials. The proposed ID card will be linked to documents such as the Aadhar card or the voter ID card.
Anna University’s affiliation wing has been entrusted with the task of creating a database of faculty in all colleges and providing them identification documents. The affiliation wing was chosen as it carries out the inspection of colleges and verifies documents and certificates of the faculty, said S. Ganesan, AU registrar.
University officials said they have trouble in establishing the authenticity of certificates that candidates may produce in colleges. “We must rely on the information the faculty provide to the college. If candidates provide fake documents, we have no way of knowing that,” an official said.
Some years ago, a teacher in an affiliated institution in the city had produced fake documents to gain employment. The fraud was found only through a police inquiry.
“In Anna University, we have certain watermarks with which we can determine the authenticity of the document. But, we don’t have the expertise to verify the documents from other institutions,” an affiliation official explained.
Officials said that universities do not reveal the watermark methods to prevent misuse and it makes the task of verifying documents tougher.
