Thiruvananthapuram: If all goes well, self-financing engineering colleges will be allowed to drop unviable courses from the next academic year.
Kerala State Self-Financing Engineering College Managements Association secretary T.A. Vijayan told DC that negotiations were on between managements and the All India Council for Technical Education on winding up unviable courses.
Students already enrolled in various courses would continue in colleges till courses were over. Thereafter courses, which did not have a reasonable number of students, would be taken out of the college prospectus.
Managements would have to give an undertaking to the director of technical education giving up their claim to courses but at the same time agree to retain teaching and nonteaching staff for other courses. Technical education director J. Letha said a final decision was still being awaited.
More than 25,000 seats have remained vacant in engineering colleges this year. The government has already announced retaining approval only for S-F engineering colleges having a minimum pass of 25%, 30% and 35% respectively for fourth, sixth and eighth semester from 2015-16 academic year.
