The Hindu : Kerala News : `States should take decision on new engineering colleges'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 26, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

`States should take decision on new engineering colleges'

By Our Staff Reporter

KOZHIKODE, AUG. 25. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman, R. Natarajan, today said that the onus of determining the need for new engineering colleges and the number of seats to be allotted in these colleges rests with the respective State Governments.

Prof. Natarajan, however, maintained that the AICTE will examine the infrastructure of engineering colleges after the State Governments had granted No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to these colleges. He was interacting with mediapersons after the convocation of the National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NITC) on the NITC campus, near here.

Responding to a query on a large number of seats remaining unfilled in new self-financing engineering colleges in Kerala, he, however defended the starting of new engineering colleges by pointing out that these colleges could argue that these graduates were needed for the neighbouring States and the global market. Also, there was a rationale for their existence as the ratio of professional colleges to the population was far below the ratio in other countries, including developing ones.

Prof. Natarajan also made it clear that it was not the responsibility of the education sector to generate employment. An engineer also can become an entrepreneur doing the role of a job provider instead of a job seeker. Also, market forces have a large role to play in generating employment. This explains why a large of unfilled seats were in engineering colleges in the rural areas, he said.

Multiple entrance exams

Prof. Natarajan, who was formerly director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, said that multiple entrance examinations for engineering was desirable, instead of a single entrance examination. (A single entrance for the engineering colleges in the country had been mooted during the last BJP Government by the then Human Resource Development Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi). He said the argument in favour of multiple entrance examinations was that a student falling sick on examination day will lose a chance if there was only a single entrance examination.

Asked about the probe ordered by the AICTE into the admission process of privately-run self-financing technical colleges, Prof. Natarajan said that it was for the respective State Government to take action on the issue.

He said the AICTE was of the view that specialisation should be made available only at the post-graduate level in professional colleges.

AICTE initiatives

Elaborating the four major initiatives of the AICTE, Prof. Natarajan said that the body was focussing on quality, new thrust in curriculum with focus on experimentation, institutional competitiveness and professional ethics and human values.

The AICTE was focussing on quality and was evolving new methods to improve the design and innovation capabilities of technical institutions as design and innovation were key to survival in the new age.

The need for creating a leadership was vital to the development of institutional competitiveness. In the backdrop of the Enron experience, professional ethics and human values were also important and hence the AICTE has set up the National Resources Centre for Value Education in Experiments at IIT, Delhi.

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