Engg college fails to send annual report to AICTE

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Engg college fails to send annual report to AICTE

Ahmedabad, October 8 A Government-Run engineering college has been reported to have failed to submit its annual status report (also called Compliance Report) for the year 2007-08 to the apex approving body All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), which creates the possibility of its approval stand cancelled.

The college, regardless of not having a single permanent faculty member, had granted admission to 120 students for current academic year. On the other hand, the State Government is preparing for the bhoomi pujan for its Technical University on October 10, which aims at bringing engineering institutes in the State under one roof.

Replying to an Right to Information (RTI) application, seeking reports on status of faculty staff in Government engineering colleges, AICTE Central Regional Office at Bhopal, has informed that it was yet to receive the Compliance Report from Government Engineering College (GEC) at Bhavnagar. It also reported that GEC Bhavnagar, along with other GECs, are severely under-staffed with three colleges not even having principals. As per reports of State Education Department, GEC Bhavnagar has not a single permanent faculty on its list, and is employing visiting faculty to teach students .

A Compliance Report is an annual detail regarding faculty and infrastructure, available with a particular engineering college, so as to assess whether the college supports technical education as per the norms laid down by the AICTE. In case this is found to be non-complaint with AICTE norms, the institute’s approval is cancelled.
As per its report, 11 engineering colleges run by Government are short of 196 teaching staff in all, but could not divulge “reason for continuing approval to these colleges under staff shortage”. On other hand, these colleges have employed around 130 visiting faculty for teaching students here, reports AICTE.

The State Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) office, however, said that Compliance Report for college was already submitted to the AICTE and so its approval could not be cancelled. “We have submitted the Compliance Report and it’s lying with the AICTE. I am surprised that the AICTE has denied having received the report. The approval of the college will not be cancelled,’’ said Manish Bhargava, Commissioner, DTE (Gujarat). Bhargava admitted that colleges were short-staffed saying that Government was finding it difficult to get qualified faculty. “We have employed sufficient visiting faculty for these colleges as it is hard to recruit permanent faculty, though we are working in that direction,’’ he added.
Express news service, October 09, 2007 at 12:00:00

Engg college fails to send annual report to AICTE