CHENNAI: Online classes for all students, except first year, studying in engineering, arts and science colleges would begin on August 9, Higher Education Minister K Ponmudi announced on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, representatives of the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional and Arts and Science Colleges submitted a representation seeking to implement weightage for internal and written exam uniform for all engineering colleges. The consortium cited that the weightage system in other engineering colleges should also be implemented on the lines of Anna University.
Anna University campuses give 50% weightage for internal and written exams, the weightage for affiliated colleges is 20% for internal and 80% for written exams. The consortium gave representation to make weightage for internal and written exam uniform for all colleges. The minister also assured the representatives that he will look into the matter. “He has assured that steps would be taken to make the weightage for internal and written exams in engineering colleges uniform in all colleges,” said a member of the consortium.
Speaking to reporters, the minister also said that in the wake of Covid the higher education department will ask colleges not to collect more that 75% of tuition fees for this academic year.
The minister highlighted that in just two-days time, 41,363 applications have been received for engineering admissions counselling while for government arts and science colleges the number is 1,26,748. The application process for admission into engineering, arts and science colleges started from July 26. “We expect more applications in the coming days as students can apply for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission till August 24,” said the minister.
There are 1,00,102 seats available in 143 government arts and science colleges.