CHENNAI: The state government is planning to double the number of seats in Tamil medium undergraduate engineering courses at Anna University from the next academic year. The announcement was made by higher education minister K Ponmudy who reviewed the activities of various departments and research centers at the university on Thursday.
Currently, there are 30 seats each for civil and mechanical courses and the government plans to increase it to 60, he said.
After an interaction with department and research centre heads, Ponmudy said an Act in the state provides 20% reservation in government jobs to Tamil medium students and the move will help produce more graduates who can avail of the reservation. He added that Anna University has advised its affiliated colleges to provide appropriate training to their faculty.
The move assumes significance as last month Anna University issued a notification to 13 of its constituent colleges to close down BE civil and mechanical courses in Tamil medium due to poor enrolment.
However, a day after the issue was reported in TNIE, Ponmudy intervened in the matter, and on his advice the decision was immediately rolled back by the university.
The minister also said that from the next academic year, the higher education department is planning to introduce Tamil medium engineering courses in computer science and electronics courses. He said that the work of converting textbooks from English to Tamil is in progress and once the study material is ready, the courses will be offered in Tamil. "So far, over 70 engineering textbooks have been translated to Tamil," said Ponmudy.