AICTE warns colleges to avoid short-cuts

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) today issued a warning to private engineering colleges and some universities to avoid recruiting faculty members on contractual basis by paying a pittance.

Speaking on the sidelines of the conference on 'Higher technical education in West Bengal: Prospects & issues' organised by the department of higher education, government of West Bengal, H P Dikshit, chairman of AICTE, alleged some private colleges are recruiting faculty on contractual basis paying them a few thousand rupees a month but in the process delivering poor quality of teaching.

In order to maintain the standard of teaching, AICTE approved only 180 out of 707 applications received this year.

AICTE is planning to send special teams with members from all stakeholders like AICTE itself, state governments and affiliating university to monitor institutes.

AICTE can withdraw affiliation, he warned.

AICTE is also thinking of permitting short duration engineering courses as required by industry.

"The institutes must work closely with industry and plan courses according to industry needs to enhance employability of candidates," said Dikshit.

The technical higher educational institutes should take a futuristic approach in popularising courses, Dikshit added.

"Had projections about demand for information technology or biotechnology professionals been done earlier, then there would not have been a demand supply mismatch," Dikshit said.

AICTE is also thinking of improving the rating system.

"AICTE is initiating discussions with international accrediting boards to rate Indian institutes jointly with the National Accrediting Board (NAB)," said Dikshit.

Biotech park

West Bengal is trying to involve ICICI Bank to fund the planned biotech park at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, chief minister of the state, said here today.

He also said that the state is taking emerging areas like oil technology, energy science and petroleum technology much seriously.

"We cannot afford to neglect unconventional emerging areas, " said Bhattacharjee.

He also urged the higher education department to look at popularising areas like leather technology as a major leather complex was coming up at Bantala.