Publish rankings based on results, faculty, infrastructure, Engineering Colleges told

A writ plea has been made in the Madras High Court for a direction to the Anna University and the AICTE to publish in the prospectus/booklet for admission in engineering courses under the single window system (SWS), the pass out percentage of each college coming under SWS, separate identification to each of the college having similar names and their rank list.

The first bench comprising Acting Chief Justice R K Agrawal and Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar, before which the PIL from D Bhoobalasamy came up for hearing, ordered notice returnable by April 29.

According to petitioner, while he was guiding his daughter, who was completing plus two this year, for engineering admission, he came across several anomalies. There were 521 engineering colleges in TN. Of  them, 29 came under the government and government-aided group while the remaining were self-financing colleges. There had been several reports that these colleges did not match the standards as set out under the AICTE Act or the Regulations. Recently, there had been reports stating that the employability of the students coming out of the engineering colleges was very poor.

While this being the factual position, there had been various advertisements and reports stating that some engineering colleges were top rank holders. The colleges listed themselves at a particular rank within the State and lured the students. Students after joining the colleges found that the factual situation was contrary to what had been portrayed in the rank list. Therefore, the Anna University should be directed to analyse all the 521 institutions in terms of their infrastructure, teaching faculty, results and other progressive performance and prepare a rank list. Through such process, a healthy competition could be created, whereby each college would attempt to outwit the other by developing their infrastructure, results and quality of the engineers coming out of these institutions, he added.