No new tech colleges in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has accepted the proposal of the state government that no new self-financing engineering colleges should be given sanction.  The government pointed out that more than 20,000 seats remained vacant in self-financing engineering colleges in BTech  courses. However, the AICTE rejected the state demand that new courses should not be granted.  An expert committee of the AICTE which held discussions with government officials on Wednesday made clear their stand on the proposals.

Principal secretary of higher education, Usha Titus also asked the AICTE committee not to sanction new polytechnics, pharmacy colleges and hotel management colleges and new courses in these colleges. However, the AICTE did not accept these demands.  At present, there are no applications before the AICTE for new engineering colleges.

However, applications for new polytechnics and other technical institutions are pending before it. The delegation was headed by chairman of AICTE’s southern region committee, professor T.G. Sitharam of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

The visit of the delegation was on the basis of the future plan report of the higher education department that wanted a scrutiny of the availability of qualified teachers in colleges as it alone can ensure improved learning and teaching standards of institutions. There should be mechanisms in place to evaluate teaching-learning standards and time-bound measures to increase the employability of engineering graduates, it said.