The Hindu : DTE asks engg. colleges to tone up quality

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 23, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

DTE asks engg. colleges to tone up quality

By Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE May 22. Quality assurance as one of the features that delineate the best engineering institutions from the rest, has come to stay. And the visit of an expert committee, headed by the Director of Technical Education (DTE), to all engineering colleges earlier this year has checked them for infrastructure, and eligibility and quality of teachers in each of them, apart from examining them as a prelude to according permission for starting new courses.

And now, the DTE has issued a circular to all engineering colleges urging them to tone up the quality of teaching as part of the exercise to implement the pay scales recommended by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and ensure that the institutions are steered by persons of eminence.

The minimum qualification and experience for the director, principal or head of an engineering college is a Ph.D with a first class degree at the Bachelor's or Master's level, and 15 years experience in teaching, industry or research of which at least five years must be as professor or above, in engineering and technology.

The circular, dated May 15, 2002, notes that while many government and aided institutions are initiating measures in a phased manner, it is now the turn of private colleges to find qualified and eminent persons to steer their institutions towards quality technical institutions.

Further, the circular notes, compliance with these rules could only help the colleges access government and institutional funding for various programmes. Once the rules are complied with, the AICTE can ask the National Board of Accreditation to assess them for eligibility for such financial grants to improve infrastructure and development of various facilities and expansion activities.

The Visvesvaraya Technical University (VTU) has a list of colleges that are currently headed by persons who don't technically fit the bill as per rules, sources told The Hindu. A few colleges in Bangalore, which are usually the first choice of CET toppers, and one that has figured in the nation's top 10 list of institutions in a magazine survey, have principals who do not have a Ph. D.

A cursory look at the list shows that another new, wannabe "top-tenner" in Bangalore, which has weaned away a good many CET toppers from the "elder" institutions but hasn't quite made it to the nation's top of the chart, is also headed by a non-Ph.D.

Sources point out that some of these appointments were made before the rules were framed, and the lack of qualification hasn't cast a shadow on the eminence of the person occupying the post.

However, they hastened to add that this should be the exception, and in the long run, it is compliance with AICTE rules that should be accorded prime importance.

After all, while eminence and efficiency are suitable in a head of an educational institution, mediocrity and throwing the rule book at an institution should not lead to an unsuitable person being chosen, they said, justifying the issues raised in the circular.

Sources said that more than half-a-dozen colleges in the State were at a disadvantage because of such appointments, and quality had begun to suffer. Of course, with the CET season on, it is only a matter of days before the students let their choices be known, and judgment passed on the institutions.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

Stories in this Section

Karnataka to seek Rs. 2,500 cr. from WB

Concern over closure of eight IT firms

Phones in Bellary District to have six digits

EC aid to set up 14 drug depots

DTE asks engg. colleges to tone up quality

Govt. gives in to sericulturists' demand

Rs.5 crore annual grant sought for development of Kannada

Coffee growers urged to take up alternative crops

Doctors stage protest