Engg colleges seek relaxation of rules to begin new courses

Engg colleges seek relaxation of rules to begin new courses

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Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:16.02.2021 

Engineering colleges in the state have asked the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to relax rules to start courses in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, data science and cyber security.

Now, colleges should have accreditation to start the new courses or they have to reduce intake in existing courses. "To get accreditation, engineering colleges should have 50% admissions against sanctioned intake. With admission to traditional courses dipping in the last few years, colleges have not been able to go for accreditation. They can survive only if they get courses such as AI and data science. Hence we have asked for simplification of the rules,” a representative from the consortium of self-financing professional, arts and science colleges said.

Of 461 colleges that took part in online engineering counselling last year, only around 130 were able to fill more than 50% of seats. Based on AICTE's direction, Anna University allowed around 50 engineering colleges to start BTech AI and Data Science courses in 2020-21. The courses saw 63.5% seats filled in the first year, while response was poor for traditional courses such as civil engineering,

(23.5%), mechanical engineering (27.8%) and electrical and electronics engineering (34%).

Top colleges, which have accredited their courses, want minimum fees fixed to meet the expenditure on implementing the seventh pay commission award. "A professor's salary would come closer to ₹2lakh. We expect AICTE to fix a minimum fee for engineering courses,” said R M Kishore, vicechairman of RMK Engineering College in Chennai.

Some principals want top colleges categorised to allow them to collect more fees. "It would encourage colleges to go for accreditation. They should categorize colleges into two or three groups and fix their fees accordingly. AICTE should also think of renewing approval for top colleges once in three years instead of annually," said B Chidambararajan, principal of SRM Valliammai Engineering College. Deemed universities want AICTE to fix the intake cap for the total number of students and not separately for degree programmes. “AICTE can grant approval by default on submission of data for top 100 universities in NIRF ranking,” said S Vaidhyasubramaniam, vice-chancellor of SASTRA.

And, professors have asked AICTE to evolve a mechanism to verify salaries. "Some engineering colleges have sacked senior faculty to avoid paying high salaries. AICTE should ensure cadre ratio in all departments," said a professor at a private engineering college.