COIMBATORE: To ensure that minority technical institutions follow rules strictly and admit the required number of minority students, the Directorate of Technical Education has directed them to submit declarations giving the number and percentage of minority students they have admitted on a yearly basis.
The self-declaration certificate should be signed by the institution's chairman or secretary (management head) and its principal or other academic head.
Around 200 of the 550 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu are linguistic or religious minority institutions. They are required to set aside only 50 percent of seats for the government quota as against 65 percent for non-minority institutions and are eligible for grants from the Central government.
Apart from details of minority community students, the document must include sanctioned strength, total number of admissions and the numbers and percentages of admissions under government and management quotas.
“Minority engineering colleges, which cater to minority students, are required to admit at least 50 percent of students belonging to the minority community. So, we have asked them to submit declarations every year, specifying the number and percentage of minority students admitted in their institution during that particular year,” S Madhumathi, Commissioner of Technical Education, told Express.
About 10 years ago, the government had asked minority institutions to admit students of the community in 50 percent of seats, but it is only now that they are being asked for self-declaration certificates with details of the admissions, said the chairman of an engineering college here.
The directive has come in for criticism. “The demand for engineering courses is already going down. Under the circumstances, it will be impossible for these institutions to admit 50 percent of students from the minority category. It may not possible to follow the directive strictly,” said T D Eswaramoorthy, joint secretary, Association of Management of Coimbatore Anna University Affiliated Colleges.