Indian university mandates visible student ID cards
02 June, 2017
category: Privilege Control, Security
Students at India’s Goa University will have to display their university ID cards at all times while on the campus starting with the 2017-18 academic year.
According to a report from The Times of India, the new campus card measure marks the first time that Goa University students will have to visibly display their campus credential. The initiative is, in part, designed to quell concerns raised by university faculty members over campus security.
Goa University’s campus, situated on the west coast of the country, is divided down the middle by a public road that runs directly through the campus. The road is a major artery in the region and connects a number of surrounding communities. But the public road has reportedly posed a challenge for university officials in keeping non-university personnel out of campus, particularly at night.
The campus is also managing new, rapidly developing residential projects on university property, creating yet more access roads into the campus to aid the construction process — making it more difficult still to separate intruders from those simply traveling through the campus.
University officials have been troubleshooting a number of ways to restrict entry to campus for non-campus individuals, citing fears from faculty members that some areas of the campus have been used as pick-up points for commercial sex workers and other illegal activity.
As a preliminary step to boosting overall campus security, university officials believe that visible ID cards will help deter individuals from outside the university community from entering campus. According to a new clause in the university’s student handbook, the wearing or displaying of university ID cards by students while on any part of the campus will be compulsory and will be “binding on the students to follow instructions given by any security staff of the university.”
