NAGPUR: Here's some good news for engineering students. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has advanced the deadline for applying for new colleges/courses for 2012-13 academic session.
The move is aimed at advancing the admission process that gets extended to September or even October most of the times, thus delaying commencing of classes and conduct of examinations. Delay in admissions had led to severe problems especially in the universities that have semester system. Not only do the students get fewer days for attending classes, but even universities and colleges face problems while conducting exams.
The apex education body for engineering education has now made it mandatory for the parties intending to start new colleges or introducing new courses to apply before December 31. AICTE chairman SS Mantha during his visit to Mumbai on Monday made it clear that this deadline would not be extended for any reason.
So far, the deadline was February 28 and this was extended most of the times to March 31 and even to April 30. This delayed approval of colleges affecting the entire admission process conducted by Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) in Maharashtra and respective technical education boards in other states. This year, the first list of approved colleges by AICTE was released on June 11, second on June 28 and third one on July 15 leading to chaos. A PIL is pending in Nagpur bench of Bombay high court regarding engineering students not being able to complete their mandatory 180 days of teaching.
"With advancement of last date, the technical education boards would be able to complete admission process in time. We've already told the state governments that deadline would not be extended," AICTE chief told TOI from Delhi. Mantha added that with e-governance, it had become possible to invite applications online and process them. "Till last year, it was not possible as a lot of manual work was involved," he said.
Regional officer at AICTE's Mumbai branch office AK Shukla said that they would now be in position to process and scrutinize applications by March 31, 2012. "After this, approval for new colleges could be given from April. In fact, approval for new courses can be started from January itself," he said.
Hailing the move, Jhulelal Institute of Technology vice-principal principal Surendra Gole said everybody would be benefited by it. "Now, DTE can start admission process by June 15 instead of July 15. Until last year, DTE used to wait for a month after declaration of Class XII results for getting information about new colleges/courses from AICTE," he said.
AICTE came out with an advertisement last month inviting applications for different types of approvals before December 31. It included converting existing technical institutions into technical campus, adding new technical programmes, change of site/location, conversion of women's institute into coeducation one, extension of approval, increase/decrease in intake, closure of programme/course, change of name of the institute, starting second shift or part-time programmes and setting up of new technical campus offering one or more technical programme at degree, diploma and further levels.
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