CHENNAI: In a bid to enhance the employability of students, Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy on Friday announced a slew of measures in the assembly. To make students industry-ready, the centre of excellence for advanced manufacturing will be established in all government engineering colleges in the state, and electric vehicle mobility centres will be established at government polytechnic college and government polytechnic college for women in Coimbatore. This will give a much-needed boost to the booming electric vehicle industry in the state.
The minister also announced from this academic year MCA courses will be offered in five government arts and science colleges while another five government arts and science colleges will offer MBA courses to students. Ponmudy also announced the department will wind up the courses in government arts and science colleges which have low enrollment and will open new courses in its place. The department will introduce industry-aligned new sandwich diploma programmes in 5 government polytechnic colleges. The sandwich courses are a mixture of two courses like electronics and communication, weaving technology etc.
The higher education department will also implement a learning management system integrated with enterprise resource planning software in all higher education institutions at the cost of Rs 150 crore. The minister also said in arts and science colleges, the enrollment increased from 4.38 lakh last year to 5.33 lakh this year, and polytechnic institutes have seen an increase of 68,791 admissions this year against last year’s 56,801.
He said the department will install sanitary napkin vending machines in 79 colleges, including 7 women’s colleges, for Rs 43 lakh, while incinerators will be installed in 168 colleges for Rs 1.26 crore.