New Delhi, January 08: The human resource development ministry on Thursday announced a set of reforms in the technical education sector to meet the growing needs of engineering and management seats in the country.
The government relaxed All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) norms and allowed new engineering and management institutions to admit more students.
The student intake in engineering colleges was limited to 240 per year, while for management courses it was 60. This has been doubled for new management colleges, while new engineering colleges can admit about 300 students.
The norms regarding land requirements have been eased to allow setting up more institutions. “Since there is a land shortage in big cities, we have reduced the requirement from three acres to 2.5 acres in mega cities, and five acres to four acres in metros,” HRD minister Kapil Sibal said.
To maximise utilisation of capacities, technical educational institutions can offer modular educational courses, with the provision of credit transfer, and can also extend teaching hours and offer programmes in the second shift.
Management institutions will have the flexibility to use about 25% seats among disciplines of post-graduate diploma in management (PGDM) according to changing requirements of manpower. “If a course is not drawing students, institutions can divert some seats to courses that are in demand,” Sibal said.
Management institutions can also co-opt foreign experts on their academic boards and conduct MBA and MCA courses through distance mode. The government will also establish a national board of accreditation as an independent body of AICTE. The board will evaluate standards of institutions and rank them.
The reforms include a transparent system of monitoring technical institutions and renewing their licences. AICTE will issue unique identification numbers to faculty members of approved institutions, to help check faculties working in multiple institutions. Biometric impressions of faculty members will be taken to track their movement.
There will also be a mechanism for students to complain against institutes.
—Agencies