Chennai: For the fair assessment of engineering colleges and their infrastructure in the state, Anna University has roped in professors top engineering institutions like IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and NITs (National Institute of Technology) in the annual inspection committees for the first time. The professors would inspect and assess facilities like labs, classrooms and quality of faculty members and submit the report to varsity, sources said.
Last year, the inspection teams found lapses in 255 engineering colleges and issued the notice to them. After getting the compliance report from 200 engineering colleges, it had trimmed 5,940 seats in 55 engineering colleges.
“The committees led by university professors are not strictly following the rules while inspecting the average and below average engineering colleges. This move would help the quality engineering colleges with quality infrastructure,” a principal from a city-based engineering college said.
The inspection of the committees would start from the first week of March and would go on until April. “This year 477 engineering colleges have applied for renewal of their affiliation. Compared to last year, 18 engineering colleges did not seek affiliation due to declining enrollment in engineering courses,” sources from AU said.
Totally, 560 institutions - 477 engineering colleges, 42 stand-alone architecture colleges, 37 MBA and 4 MCA stand-alone colleges applied for renewal of affiliation to Anna University for the year 2019-20.
“Anna University should act proactively and close all substandard engineering colleges in the state. Currently, only the colleges seeking closure alone are allowed to shut down. But, over 100 engineering colleges are having neither infrastructure nor students to sustain,” said E.Balagurusamy, former V-C of Anna University.
“The pass percentage of the colleges, placements and quality of the faculty members need to be assessed. If they performed poorly in all the parameters, then the university should not allow them to function as it would affect the future of the students,” he urged. Career consultant Jayaprakash A. Gandhi said over 200 colleges had less than 30% admission in the previous year's online engineering counselling. “These colleges will find it hard to improve their infrastructure or employ good faculty members,” he added. Anna University is even thinking of disaffiliating colleges lacking basic infrastructure and quality faculty members to teach engineering courses. “After getting reports from the inspection committees we would place them in the syndicate and take action. If the quality of the colleges is very poor, we would even disaffiliate them,” officials from Anna University said.
