Mumbai : With
the aim of improving academic standards in engineering colleges, the All India
Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has asked colleges to improve the ratio
of teachers to students. According to the new rule, all deemed and autonomous
colleges must have a student-faculty ratio of 15:1 from the academic year of
2020-21. Government colleges will continue to have a ratio of 20:1.
The new ratio
is among several changes introduced in the Approval Handbook 2020-21, released
by AICTE last week. Institutes have till March 5 to make the necessary changes
to fulfil the new requirements.
While the required
student-faculty ratio stood at 15:1 until 2018, the same was relaxed to 20:1
for all professional courses after several institutes complained against the
rule, especially government-run institutes which must wait for approvals to
hire teachers for months at a stretch. The ratio was changed to 20:1 for all
institutes in 2018. The new rule affects only deemed and autonomous colleges,
with the government colleges continuing with the 20:1 ratio.
With the
student-faculty ration reset at 15:1 for deemed and autonomous colleges, these
institutions will have to either hire more teachers or reduce the number of
students.
“Professional
courses need to focus more on quality research and while some institutes might
have some limitations, deemed and autonomous colleges get a special status
because we expect them to better the quality of education they impart,” said
Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman, AICTE. “This move will help with more faculty
[members] who could focus on research amidst students and lead to abundant mentors
for the students,” he added.
The new
student-faculty ratio is likely to lead to more jobs. “There is no dearth of
qualified teachers so institutes should have no trouble finding appropriate
faculty,” said Gopakumaran Thampi, principal of Thadomal Shahani Engineering
College, Bandra.
AICTE has
also imposed a deadline on the approval of courses by institutes, stating that
technical institutes should have at least 60% of their courses accredited in
the next three years in order to avoid repercussions. Any institute with over
70% vacancy in the last five years will face axing of their intake capacity by
50%. “These changes are necessary to maintain quality education in technical
courses, which witnessed mushrooming in the last few years but declining interest
in the courses due to falling quality,” said Sahasrabudhe.
Source | Hindustan Times | 11th
February 2020
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Mr. Pralhad Jadhav
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Senior Manager @ Knowledge
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