Hyderabad: The All India Council for Technical Education has proposed far-reaching changes in faculty-student ratio, adjunct faculty and induction training. The new faculty-student ratio for BTech has been revised to 1:20 against 1:15 in the preceding year in the council’s approval process handbook. Faculty requirement for colleges will go down with this step.
Dr Srini Bhupalam, vice-president of the Self Financing Technical Institutions, said, “There was an imbalance of the required number of faculty as proposed by AICTE and the workload prescribed by the affiliating university.”
The requirement of adjunct faculty has been dropped to 10 per cent from 20. Prof. G.V.K. Reddy of the Vardhaman College of Engineering said, “Industry experts could join as adjunct faculty which was useful to develop a useful collaboration between educational institutions and industry. The reduction will be a loss to the student community.” Induction training has been made mandatory for three weeks for first year students.
New Institutions have to pay up to Rs 1 lakh more than the preceding year for approval. Following a Supreme Court judgement that all deemed-to-be-universities and private universities must have AICTE permission, the handbook has a clause which says, “Institutions seeking approval for the first time from AICTE shall submit an application as a new technical institution. Universities having multiple campuses should apply separately for each campus.”
Land requirement in metros have been rearranged. In Hyderabad, the requirement has been reduced from 2.5 acres to 1.5 acres, and to 4 acres from 7.5 in rural areas. Prof. Reddy said, “Colleges with higher intake will face problems as the AICTE has laid down norms for more computing facilities, workshops and laboratories.” Colleges having zero admissions for the past five years will not be given approval. Colleges with less than 50 per cent admissions will face a cut in their seats.
