Physical inspection of private TN engineering colleges highly likely this year

Physical inspection of private TN engineering colleges highly likely this year

Private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu have to apply for Anna University’s provisional affiliation online this year due to the pandemic.

Published: 11th January 2021 04:49 AM 

By Sushmitha Ramakrishnan

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu have to apply for Anna University’s provisional affiliation online this year due to the pandemic. Despite the lockdown restrictions, university officials said physical inspection may be carried out to prevent malpractice in colleges.

The affiliation inspection by varsity officials was interrupted by the lockdown the previous academic year, said varsity Vice-Chancellor MK Surappa. While many colleges were granted affiliation after physical inspection, the varsity had to make do with self-declaration of adherence to regulations to provisionally grant affiliation. “We want a clean and transparent process.

Unless the Covid-19 situation gets very bad, we will have physical inspections in most cases,” he said. While the varsity was initially mulling following the same procedure this year — keeping safety in mind — after learning of malpractice in the self-declaration process, it decided to physically inspect colleges before granting affiliation, said a varsity official.

The official said the inspection will counter-check colleges’ adherence to university regulations even though it has already received approval from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) . “In accordance with the recent Supreme Court ruling — that universities can deny affiliation for engineering courses even if the AICTE grants affiliation — we will make sure colleges follow all rules before approving their applications.

Existing institutes that do not submit online applications on time will not be considered for the grant of affiliations. The details of all permanently-affiliated courses conducted in colleges should also be submitted online through the same form.

The varsity’s registrar L Karunamoorthy, through a recent circular, announced that the online application portal for the ‘Affiliation Monitoring System’ will be open from 10 am on Monday till 5 pm on Tuesday.

The circular further said faculty qualifications, experience, scale of pay and cadre ratio should be strictly followed as per the AICTE’s seventh CPC norms. The college should verify the original faculty certificates, AICTE faculty ID, PAN and Aadhaar details before uploading them.