The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has found three engineering colleges in the State ineligible to get extension of approval for admitting students for the 2013-14 academic year due to academic, infrastructural and administrative deficiencies.
These institutes were among the 324 technical and management colleges across the country that received show-cause notices from the AICTE after surprise inspections in May. The council squads visited 17 institutes, including management institutes and polytechnics, in the State.
Sources in AICTE told The Hindu on Monday that 12 among the 17 institutes were now eligible to admit students for the next academic year. The managements of these institutes appeared before an AICTE committee in the first week of June to submit their compliance report on faculty, infrastructure and administrative facilities.
The remaining five institutes, including the three engineering colleges, now found ineligible to admit students, will be allowed to file one more appeal for extension of approval in the academic year 2013-14.
A final decision on whether to withdraw the approval for the next academic year will be taken after a hearing to be held at the AICTE headquarters in New Delhi. The schedule for the hearing will be announced later.
Sources said that the council is likely to depute a team to visit two out of the five institutes found lacking in faculty, infrastructure and administrative facilities. These colleges might get a relief, if the committee recommends extension of approval for the next academic year.
Show-cause notices were issued based on two processes that included reviewing the institution on receipt of complaints or public interest litigations and the other after surprise visits by AICTE officials.
The AICTE has issued show-cause notices to institutions offering engineering, MBA, MCA and polytechnic courses after surprise inspections in May. Shortage of faculty was found to be the major reason affecting quality of education offered by the institutions.
The fall in quality of students admitted for various technical and management programmes was another area of concern.
Many students who lacked even basic requisites were found to have gained admission in colleges across the country.
The AICTE had written to the State governments to do a review of the education status in their respective States and give a review report within a year’s time to enable the council decide on approving additional colleges from 2014. (The list of institutions issued show-cause notices could be found >here .)
It has the names of only 14 institutes from the State though the updated figure given by AICTE sources is 17.