The Hindu : Karnataka / Dharwad News : Manjunath, Horatti differ on ceiling on engineering colleges

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 23, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Dharwad

Manjunath, Horatti differ on ceiling on engineering colleges

By Our Special Correspondent

DHARWAD, DEC. 22. The Minister for Medical Education, D. Manjunath, and the Minister for Small Savings and Science and Technology, Basavaraj S. Horatti, expressed different views on whether there should be a ceiling on the number of engineering colleges in the State.

Mr. Manjunath and Mr. Horatti were participating in the silver jubilee celebrations of the SDM College of Engineering and Technology here on Wednesday.

Mr. Manjunath alluded to the 8,000 seats in the engineering colleges remaining vacant this year and attributed it to the increasing number of such colleges in the State, with the number standing at 128.

Permission has been given for opening two more colleges. It will be difficult to run the engineering colleges under the circumstances, Mr. Manjunath said.

Mr. Horatti contested Mr. Manjunath's views without directly referring to it and pointed out that there should be no restrictions in the opening of engineering colleges.

"Give permission to anybody who wants to open (colleges)." The good ones will continue and the others will close down," Mr. Horatti said.

The emphasis should be on giving quality education and the Government should always encourage institutions that offered quality education, he said.

While Mr. Manjunath later referred to the good work being done in the field of education by Sri Dharmsthala Manjunatheshwara Education Society under the chairmanship of Veerendra Heggade, Mr. Horatti went hammer and tongs at some of the polices of the Government in the realm of education.

Grant-in-aid

Mr. Horatti disagreed with the proposal to go in for a cut of 15 per cent in grant-in-aid for educational institutions. He said he was opposed to it. "There is no compromise on this. I am very clear about it," Mr. Horatti said.

Mr. Horatti said while the post of principal has not been filled in 49 first grade colleges in the State, the Finance Department is still questioning why so many posts are needed.

While the Government estimated the cost for starting a secondary school at Rs. 42 lakhs, the private managements are able to do it for Rs. 9 lakhs. The overwhelming number of educational institutions is managed by private managements, he said.

If the Government were to go in for cut in grant-in-aid, what will be the fate of students in those institutions, Mr. Horatti wondered.

Mr. Horatti asked the IT companies such as Infosys to move out of Bangalore, which is getting overcrowded, and into cities such as Hubli-Dharwad.

Balaveera Reddy, Vice-Chancellor of Visweswariah Technological University, said that the VTU, which is among the three universities chosen for the pilot project under the education through satellite (EduSat) programme, has already made a lot of headway and the lessons prepared by it will be available to 10,000 students of 100 colleges in the State.

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Manjunath, Horatti differ on ceiling on engineering colleges