HYDERABAD: The engineering colleges have slammed the Jawaharlal NehruTechnological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH), the new decision of hiring faculty with a Ph.D. degree. The effect came on
Tuesday which has imposed strict restrictions on the qualification of the faculty.
JNTU officials said the rules were necessary to improve the quality of education in the state, but the engineering colleges are against the new rules.
Gautam Rao, president, Telangana Engineering Colleges, said.”There are a little over 5,000 Ph.D. holders in the country. Going by the new rules, we will need at least 4,500 Ph.D. holders to fill all the faculty positions. They know we can’t hire so many PhDs and introduced the rule to reduce the number of seats.”
He added.”Small colleges will lose their qualified faculty to big engineering colleges.”
The new affiliation rule state that all engineering colleges should have at least one faculty for 120 students. For every additional 60 students, one faculty with Ph.D. should be recruited. M Tech colleges should have at least two Ph.D. faculty for 18 to 30 students.
K Ramadass, convener, Telangana Private College JAC, said.”In June 2014, we had 376 colleges, now there are only 200-odd colleges in the state. If JNTU fails to relax rules, the number of seats will go drop as colleges will not admit more than 60 students in a branch and the M.Tech program will disappear.”
N Yadaiah, registrar, JNTUH, said.”If they can’t hire required faculty members, why are they running colleges? We have enough candidates with PhDs, it is just that colleges don’t want to pay higher salaries.We are not going to relax these rules.”
“If JNTU can implement this, students will benefit. In many colleges, MTech students double as faculty and the knowledge they have are minimum,” A Alekhya, a BTech student, said.
Recently JNTU-H introduced a biometric attendance system for both students as well as faculty members to bring about transparency and prevent manipulation of records.