As another admission season begins, the teachers’ associations have, as they do time and again, raised the issue of transparency in admission to arts and science colleges, especially in government-aided institutions.
The Association of University Teachers (AUT) has written to the Directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE), urging that the admission guidelines be released for the current academic year for arts and science colleges. Ironically, since 2011, the government has been releasing the guidelines not before admission begins, but at a later date when most of the aided colleges are almost through with the process.
In April 2012 itself, the association asked the Higher Education Department to establish a regulatory mechanism. But the government has remained “a mute spectator” to the “gross violations” by private aided and self-financing managements, the AUT has said.
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The association has demanded that the fee structure for various courses be printed in the prospectus and college principals and admission committees held responsible for violations. It has called for including senior teaching faculty members in admission committees and strict implementation of reservation rules. Besides, admission to aided courses has to be completed before the process is taken up for self-financing courses offered by the same institution.
Teachers’ association blame the regional directors — there are six in the State — of collegiate education for the poor implementation of the guidelines. “Most regional directors are government college professors. So they have no knowledge of the guidelines for private colleges,” says a retired government teacher. The Tamil Nadu Educational Institutions (Prohibition of Collection of Capitation Fee) Act was passed in 1992, and the rules were framed in 1997; but till date, the document remains perfunctory and rarely implemented, say college teachers. The Act has been in force for 22 years, but no institution has so far been booked under it for violations. In 1994, a GO on fee structure was issued, but there has been no revision yet, says AUT vice-president K. Pandiyan.
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Students and parents are unaware of fee structure or sanctioned intake for various courses offered by aided and private colleges despite an Act aimed at protecting their interests.