HYDERABAD: In what appears to be laxity on part of the private engineering colleges, there are no takers for the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) in the State that boasts of the highest number of engineering institutes.
A visionary programme, at least on paper, TEQIP is programme of the Department of Technology, Union Government, initiated to bridge the `gap between the educational standards of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other engineering institutions’.
Colleges that have been there for at least six years are eligible to apply for the programme in which faculty training would be imparted.
Even as the Commissionerate of Technical Education has called for the same, there was a lukewarm response from the colleges with a meagre 60 colleges approaching them out of a total 208 such engineering colleges in the State.
“With barely one-fourth of the eligible colleges applying for the TEQIP, we had to give a notification for the second time. We have to see if any colleges wish to participate at least now,’’ a technical education department official said. He said that new colleges, which have just qualified in this category, are the ones who show very little interest in applying, while other established engineering colleges have applied.
According to the officials, apart for improvement in teaching and learning facilities, the programme would be beneficial for the colleges in modernisation and strengthening of libraries, enhanced interaction with industry and academic support for weak students among others.
When asked why the colleges were not keen on taking part in the programme, officials said that only established institutions are showing interest, while other colleges are only concerned about the fees and not bothered about the infrastructure and improvement of faculty.
“It is very obvious. Most of the colleges, regardless of the faculty and amenities are ensured of the `lolly,’ thanks to the fee reimbursement scheme,’’ a functionary of Bapatla Engineering College said.
When quizzed if the lesser number of applications is a result of the fee-reimbursement scheme, Technical Education Commissioner L Premchandra Reddy did not comment.
“We have given notifications twice. If the college managements are not interested in applying we cannot do anything. They should have interest in such initiatives,’’ he said.