With the technical education sector overcome by dearth of qualified teachers, the Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in Tamil Nadu has appealed to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to ease the norms on faculty requirement for engineering colleges.
Recently the UGC, which took control of professional education in the wake of the Supreme Court order negating the role of the All India Council for Technical Education, unveiled draft regulations for technical and professional institutions and invited comments from stakeholders. Responding to this, the Consortium headed by veteran educationist Jeppiaar, has submitted suggestions to the UGC urging it to reduce the staff student ratio from 1:15 to 1:20. In justification of the demand, he has pointed out that the Prof U R Rao Review Committee on AICTE had in 2002 put the faculty shortage in Tamil Nadu alone at 26,000. Four years later, in 2006 when Tamil Nadu had 229 engineering colleges with a student intake of 1.02 lakh, the Prof P Rama Rao Committee had mentioned that there was a shortage of 30,000 teachers in the State.
Now the shortage of staff has grown exponentially since the State has 552 engineering colleges with a student intake of over 2.73 lakh. At the same time last year nearly one lakh BE/BTech seats had no takers in Tamil Nadu. With this lesser less number of students, the colleges were finding it difficult to meet a staff student ratio of 1:15, the Consortium has contended. Therefore, it sought a review of this norm and increasing the ratio to one faculty per every 20 students.
The Consortium has requested that the ratio of professors, associate and assistant professors be revised to 1:2:9 against the UGC’s 1:2:6. The Consortium suggested engineering graduates be recruited as protem lecturers and teachers with 10 years experience with ME/MTech qualification be promoted as Associate Professors. ME/MTech qualification be promoted as Associate Professors.
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