The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Two new technical varsities for State

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Aug 07, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Two new technical varsities for State

V. Jayanth

The proposal has raised a lot of questions related to their size and status

Chennai: In the 2006-07 budget, Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan made a passing announcement about the Government's intention to set up two technical universities in the State.

He said: "This Government has decided to establish two technical universities on the lines of Anna University in Chennai — one at Tiruchi and another at Coimbatore."

Sketchy framework

Education Minister K. Ponmudi gave some more details in the Assembly on August 4, but the framework is still sketchy. They will be called Anna University, Tiruchi, and Anna University, Coimbatore.

Is that supposed to mean everything will be common and the new universities will be more like branches?

But the major question relates to the size and status of the proposed universities. By the very suggestion that it will be on the lines of Anna University, the Government has hinted at the possibility of sticking to the affiliating type of university.

Academics now expect the two new universities to delink the bulk of private self-financing and government engineering colleges from the parent Anna University, by affiliating them with the regional universities in Tiruchi and Coimbatore.

While Tiruchi may take the colleges in the central and southern zones, Coimbatore will keep the institutions in the western zone.

Ever since Anna University became an affiliating university and took under its wings about 240 private self-financing engineering colleges, there have been complaints galore about its inability to handle so many institutions.

Obviously, there cannot be the kind of monitoring and maintenance of standards when a university has to look after so many colleges, each with its own set of problems. Very soon, demands for restoring the original status of Anna University and returning the colleges to the control of the respective regional universities such as Madras, Bharathiar, Bharatidasan, and Madurai Kamaraj among others, was made.

Three-way split

Now the DMK Government has decided to implement a three-way split of Anna University. It is presumed that each of the three technical universities will have about 80 colleges. This will turn out to another version of decentralization and delinking. As of now, the one good thing about Anna University and the 240 odd engineering colleges is the uniform syllabus and examination system. So all engineering graduates coming out of these institutions can be graded on the same scale.

Uniform pattern

Former vice-chancellors and Academic Deans suggest that depending on the expertise available with each of these three technical universities, they could take charge of a group of engineering branches.

They could prescribe and review syllabi, besides setting the question papers for the semesters. That way, a uniform pattern and evaluation of all engineering graduates passing out every year becomes possible

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