SC stays HC order on new engg. courses

SC stays HC order on new engg. courses

Courses sanctioned without proper study, says KTU

19/10/2020

K.C. Gopakumar KOCHI

The Supreme Court has stayed the High Court verdict directing the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technological University (KTU) to consider the applications submitted by various self-financing engineering colleges seeking affiliation for starting additional undergraduate courses in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Blockchain.

The stay order came on a special leave petition filed by the KTU challenging the High Court judgment.

Varsity stance

The university in its petition said the action of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in sanctioning new courses to institutions without a study on the subjects and without consultations with the State government/university/board was in violation of the provisions of the AICTE Act.

The petition said the university decision was in line with the State government’s decision in this regard. The State government had decided to grant new courses in the existing engineering colleges only if they satisfied certain conditions. The conditions are that the new courses should have NBA accreditation, admission in the previous years should be more than 50% of the sanctioned intake, and new courses proposed should be innovative. These conditions are imposed since the demand for engineering undergraduate courses in private self-financing colleges has drastically come down in the past decade.

Study by experts

A study by academic experts said the low rate of admission would make the institutions financially unviable and lead to compromise on faculty and infrastructure. The study opined that indiscriminate sanctioning of courses in below par institutions was against the interests of society. Colleges could aspire for new courses only after getting NBA accreditation for the existing courses, the petition added.