Chennai: Over 30 private engineering colleges will have to reduce their intake by half as per new regulations by All India Council for Technical Education, which has mandated to reduce the intake of students if the admission in courses was less than 30 per cent for the past five years. According to sources, of 525 engineering colleges minimum of 30 colleges have less than 30 per cent intake in the past five years.
“The engineering colleges need to have minimum 40-50 per cent admissions in courses to run the college. It is not worth creating unemployable engineers”, said Jayaprakash A. Gandhi, a career consultant. “Very strict measures have to be brought in by AICTE”. The council has softened its earlier position on vacant seats as it wanted not to grant any fresh approval for the courses having less than 30 per cent admission for last five years consecutively. The new rule says it will reduce the intake by 50 per cent.
Teacher-student ratio raised to 1:20 for tech institutions
The approval process handbook for 2018-19 of the council says that institutions having courses with no admission for past five years shall be closed in the current academic year. AICTE has increased the student teacher ratio to 1:20 from 1:15 in technical institutions. “This relaxation will help institutions performing well as the 1:15 ratio was difficult to follow practically”, a private college principal said.
It also relaxed other rules such as number of computers per students and subscriptions to online journals. “Of 500 odd colleges 300 are performing well and remaining 200 spoiling engineering education by providing substandard education. Some of them are surviving by just the refunds from the government for first generation graduates and SC/ST students”, a source said. These colleges are also creating social issue by producing unemployable engineering graduates.
AICTE’s regional office plans to hold a meeting with college managements and deemed to be universities about the new approval handbook. As per the Supreme Court’s order, the technical education council has mandated all deemed universities in the country to get the prior approval from AICTE for running their engineering courses.
