Higher Education Technical Council likely to be formed early next month.
The Tamil Nadu government is in the process of setting up an education council consisting of government and industry representatives to revisit the current syllabus in arts and engineering disciplines. The council is likely to be formed early next month.
The decision comes after various industries made representations on the quality of the passouts from the colleges.
State higher education minister K Ponmudi said the ‘Higher Education Technical Council’ would rework the entire syllabus in arts and engineering courses. Besides having representatives from the state government and industries, it will have experts from various organisations and educational institutions.
This apart, the government is planning to open more arts and engineering colleges in tier II and III cities to meet the requirement of IT/ITeS companies, he told Business Standard on the sidelines of Connect 2008, the Confederation of Indian Industry's annual ICT (information, communication and technology) event recently.
K Purushothaman, regional director, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), which is expected to be a part of the council, said the current curriculum was not meeting the industry requirements. As a service sector industry “our focus would be on improving soft skills and industry knowledge, which would match the companies’ requirements.”
Manickam Ramaswami, chairman, CII-Tamil Nadu, and chairman and managing director, Loyal Textile Mills Ltd, said the need of the hour was creating skilled students relevant to the industry. The current syllabi in most of the universities were outdated. “We should change the entire system of testing. It should be more application-oriented and not memory-oriented,” said Ramaswami.
Nasscom also focuses on training faculty, who in turn train students. A new programme called ‘Faculty Development Programme’ has been initiated by the body, added Purushothaman.
In the last two years, the state government opened seven arts colleges in Orathanadu, Perambalur, Valparai, Kulithalai, Lalgudi and Mettur. On the other hand, six engineering colleges came up in the last one year at Dindivanam, Villipuram, Panruti, Thirukuvalai, Perambalur and Ramanathapuram.
The number of rural students admitted to government arts colleges increased 15 per cent to 6,74,486 last year from 5,68,226 a year before. Similarly, engineering colleges saw a rise of 47 per cent to 50,058 last year from 34,069 students a year before.
