Hyderabad: The intake of students to MTech courses in private engineering colleges has fallen by half this year due to lack of qualified teachers. The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) has made a PhD mandatory for MTech teachers, of whom there is a dire shortage.
With few teachers in place, the university is giving admissions only to 5,978 students this year out of the 29,742 aspirants who cracked the Post Graduate Engineering Common Entrance Test.
JNTU registrar Dr N. Yadaiah said the university was insisting on a doctrate for teaching MTech students to maintain quality. “While teaching MTech students, the faculty should also guide them on their projects. Therefore, a PhD is mandatory,” he said.
He said the eligibility norms for MTech teachers was upgraded after getting general feedback about the improper classwork by lesser qualified faculty members. He said the university was also implementing biometric attendance for the faculty.
Prof. P. Ramesh Babu, co-convener PGECET said, “The university has to maintain a certain student-faculty ratio for the PG course. As there are not many teachers with PhDs in private engineering colleges, the JNTU is not able to approve MTech to more students.”
Mr Goutham Rao, president, Engineering Colleges Management Association, said, “If this situation continues, many students will lose the opportunity of doing their MTech this year. If the students do not complete MTech how will we get more candidates for PhD to fulfill the requirement?”
He said universities in other states were not following the same eligibility norm, and it was therefore unfair that only the JNTUH was insisting on teachers with PhDs.
“How can the university introduce so many norms in a year? They also want doctorates to teach BTech students including for specialisations. The university should introduce such norms one by one every year. Reducing the MTech seats suddenly is not correct.”
