Pvt colleges seek easing of norms for new courses

Pvt colleges seek easing of norms for new courses

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:12.04.2021

Private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu have petitioned the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to relax the 50% admissions norm to start new courses. In its approval process handbook for 2021-22, the AICTE stated that new courses will be allowed only in case of more than 50% over all enrollment in the last year.

Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu has got the interim stay against the new regulation at the Madras high court. The last date to apply for new courses with AICTE is April  13.

With just two days left for applying to new courses, the consortium sent representation to the AICTE to give relaxation as per the court order.

“Most students are aspiring for admission only to employment oriented or emerging areas like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, cyber security among others. The existing traditional courses do not have demand and they are not attracting students. Due to the poor admission in traditional engineering courses, most of the colleges can't satisfy the new condition imposed in the approval process handbook,” P Selvaraj, secretary of the consortium said in his representation to the AICTE.

He further said the present situation compels the colleges to apply for additional courses in emerging areas for their survival and effective utilisation of infrastructure facilities.

“Without other options, for the benefit of our member institutions, the consortium resorted to legal course and got the interim stay order against the new rule. We request the AICTE to grant exemption from the new condition imposed in APH 2021-22 to our member institutions and to give permission to apply on the web portal for new courses,” Selvaraj said in the representation.

Due to poor admissions, as many as 109 technical institutions, including 88 engineering colleges, in Tamil Nadu have stopped admitting new students in the last three years as running these institutions is no longer feasible for them.

The present situation compels institutions to apply for additional courses in emerging areas for their survival