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AICTE for upgrading academic status of private engineering colleges

UNI, New Delhi | Published : 18th February, 2018

Concerned with the deteriorating quality of education in private engineering colleges, their management are looking into the possibility of closing down courses having less than 25 per cent enrollment as among drastic measures to maintain academic standards.

Many blame mushrooming of private engineering colleges which has led to a sorry pass in the country where quality has been sacrificed at the altar of quantity and expediency.

Over recent months, the flashpoint between administrators, academics and teachers concern affiliation regulations to be implemented from the academic year 2018-19, implementation of Model Curriculum proposed by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), mandatory internship and induction programme among others.

Even before recent reports that not a single student from 43 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu could clear their first semester examinations, the results of which were declared in the second week of February, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has swung into action and taken notice of the steady decline in academic standards.

However, the primary concern of the MHRD is the lack of students in as many as 800 technical institutes -- which includes around 80 run by the government -- that are threatened with shutdown. AICTE has said that if these institutes do not find enough students to fill their seats as they have been served notice for poor performance, they may face closure. With a view to improving the quality of technical education so as to increase employability of the students, AICTE has approved the following action plan: preparing Long-term Perspective Plans for technical education at state level, so that quality issues being faced could be focused on in consultation with the concerned state governments. This will be a guiding document while approving new institutions by AICTE.

Meanwhile, in Thiruvananathapuram, Kerala, AICTE has rejected the state government's request that no new engineering courses be granted to any of the existing engineering colleges in the state, for the time being. Students on admission will be put through a mandatory Induction training to reinforce the fundamental concepts and the required language skills required for the technical education. The model curriculum and the periodicity of this induction training will be separately notified by the AICTE.

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