Heeding to the long pending demand of the engineering colleges, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has changed the faculty-student ratio for engineering programmes from the present 1:15 to 1:20 while it also made a three-week induction programme mandatory for the first-year students.
The changes were reflected in the AICTE Approval Process Handbook (APH) released on Friday. Colleges have been demanding that the AICTE increase the faculty-student ratio as it was not in tune with the requirements of the universities that have variations in their syllabi.
“There was an imbalance between the required number of faculty as per AICTE and workload as per the affiliating University-prescribed syllabus. We are happy to see this change,” said Dr. Srini Bhupalam, chairman of NRI Institute of Technology and vice-president of All India Federation of Self-Financing Technical Institutions. Non-availability of qualified teachers was another issue to meet the ratio demand.
Another welcoming change was making three-week Induction Training mandatory for first year students. The programme was introduced in IITs and NITs with success where students were first introduced about the engineering course and the lifeskills that they need to acquire ensuring that they develop their overall personality.
“These include leadership programmes, sports and aspects related to creativity and we have been arguing for such changes,” said Srinivasa Rao Meda, Director, Academic Audit Cell, JNTU Hyderabad while welcoming it. The AICTE that introduced the Adjunct Faculty concept last year has reduced it from 20% to 10%. As per last year’s norm, colleges can have 20% of their faculty from industry to bring industry experience to the classroom. That is now reduced to just maximum of 10% and college managements feel it is a regressive step.
“We are disappointed with this change and colleges that collaborate with the industries for enhancing industry skills will lose out. It will be a loss to the student community too,” says Dr. Srini Bhupalam. “They should have waited for some more time to see its outcome.”
The land requirements have also been changed and in Mega and Metro cities land has been replaced with built-up area as per the concerned Development Authority conforming to the latest Building bye-laws in the respective cities. At the same time Urban land area requirement has been reduced from 2.5 acres to 1.5 acres and rural land area requirement reduced from 7.5 acres to 4 acres. However, there is a confusion as to number of laboratory rooms required.
