Nearly 90 percent of private unaided engineering colleges in the state are likely to be upbraided for lack of infrastructure and qualified faculty members when the state task force committee submits its report on 684 colleges to the state government by the last week of January.
“The final phase of inspections will be compiled by January 20. So far, 674 colleges have been inspected and the remaining 10, which could not be inspected earlier, will be covered over the next few days,” said Ajay Jain, technical education commissioner and member of the state task force.
The qualifications of faculty members, rather than their numbers, has been a major drawback at most of the engineering colleges. “Nearly 80 percent of the colleges lack qualified faculty members. As per AICTE norms, an associate professor should be a Ph.D, with a teaching experience of five years while a professor has to have a teaching experience of 13 years. These norms are not followed at most of the institutions,” said the commissioner.
He added that at most of the colleges, the faculty-student ratio of 1:15 did not take into account the 20 percent student intake in the second year through the lateral entry scheme of the ECET. Also, a large number of retired professors and associate professors of university colleges are on the rolls of private colleges. “They cannot be performing teaching duties beyond the age of 65 and their salaries cannot be considered a part of the pay expenditure,” added the commissioner.
In the area of infrastructure, the colleges have been evaluated on the basis of land, built-up area, computers, laboratory facilities and libraries. Inspection of MBA, MCA and Pharmacy colleges is also likely to be completed by March in order to fix the fee for professional colleges in time for counselling.