OU hits pause button on detention system for engg students this year

Hyderabad: There will be no detention for BE students this year at Osmania University; the government will hold a meeting with autonomous colleges to have uniformity in credit scores and detention policy.

The issue was raised by AIMIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi during question hour in the Assembly on Monday. He sought to know whether the university had issued orders to enforce detention policy for the BE students admitted in 2023-24 onwards.

Replying on behalf of CM, Health Minister C Damodar Rajanarasimha agreed that the university had brought in the detention policy. He said that in OU the detention system was there from ages and exempted students from detention rules from academic years 2020-21 to 2022-23 due to the Covid pandemic; the system was continuing from the academic year 2023-24.

The minister said that the students had to earn at least 50 per cent of credits prescribed for their semester exams. The number of students who appeared was 2,535; 2,205 students passed/promoted, and 330 were detained.

Owaisi pointed out there were different policies in different universities. While the OU prescribed 50 credits, JNTU specified 35 credits for passing. Some autonomous colleges were lenient and promoting students. When credits are 35 in JNTU, the pass percentage was 40; if it was 50 credits, what could be the percentage, he asked.

There should be a uniform syllabus for JNTU, Osmania, and autonomous universities. He said already dropouts were increasing in engineering; the detention policy would further increase dropouts. He wanted the government to call a meeting of engineering colleges to bring about uniformity.

He wanted the government to have inspection teams to check autonomous universities. The Minister replied that the government agreed in principle to cancel detentions this year and also assured to hold the meeting.