One
teacher per 15 students: AICTE’s rule for autonomous, deemed colleges
Mumbai : With the aim of improving academic
standards in engineering colleges, the All India Council for Technical
Education (AICTE) has asked colleges to improve the ratio of teachers to
students. According to the new rule, all deemed and autonomous colleges must
have a student-faculty ratio of 15:1 from the academic year of 2020-21.
Government colleges will continue to have a ratio of 20:1.
The new ratio is among several changes introduced in
the Approval Handbook 2020-21, released by AICTE last week. Institutes have
till March 5 to make the necessary changes to fulfil the new requirements.
While the required student-faculty ratio stood at
15:1 until 2018, the same was relaxed to 20:1 for all professional courses
after several institutes complained against the rule, especially government-run
institutes which must wait for approvals to hire teachers for months at a
stretch. The ratio was changed to 20:1 for all institutes in 2018. The new rule
affects only deemed and autonomous colleges, with the government colleges
continuing with the 20:1 ratio.
With the student-faculty ration reset at 15:1 for
deemed and autonomous colleges, these institutions will have to either hire
more teachers or reduce the number of students.
“Professional courses need to focus more on quality
research and while some institutes might have some limitations, deemed and
autonomous colleges get a special status because we expect them to better the
quality of education they impart,” said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman, AICTE.
“This move will help with more faculty [members] who could focus on research
amidst students and lead to abundant mentors for the students,” he added.
The new student-faculty ratio is likely to lead to
more jobs. “There is no dearth of qualified teachers so institutes should have
no trouble finding appropriate faculty,” said Gopakumaran Thampi, principal of
Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Bandra.
AICTE has also imposed a deadline on the approval of
courses by institutes, stating that technical institutes should have at least
60% of their courses accredited in the next three years in order to avoid
repercussions. Any institute with over 70% vacancy in the last five years will
face axing of their intake capacity by 50%. “These changes are necessary to
maintain quality education in technical courses, which witnessed mushrooming in
the last few years but declining interest in the courses due to falling quality,”
said Sahasrabudhe.
Source | Hindustan Times | 11th February 2020
Regards!
Librarian
Rizvi Institute of Management
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