CII focus on new-age colleges

The state government would ensure that courses in basic engineering were being offered at any institute before approving accredition as the growth of the manufacturing sector in the state had led to renewed demand for engineers.

Sudarsan Raichaudhuri, West Bengal's minister for higher education, said at the Confederation of Indian Industries-All India Council for Technical Education (CII-AICTE) technical education meet here today that AICTE could collaborate with University Grants Commission (UGC) to facilitate the introduction of engineering courses to exploit existing capacity in colleges.

With the opening up of the education system to private players, institutions of technical education had mushroomed but many did not meet standards.

AICTE recently issued show-cause notices to 120 institutions failing to meet regulatory criteria for AICTE approval, said Prasad Krishna, quality advisor of AICTE.

Many Indian institutes had foreign tie-ups now but many foreign institutes were not accredited in their country, said Krishna. AICTE contacted concerned embassies to check out foreign institutes.

Of the 120 institutions facing a show-cause, around 10 had such foreign tie-ups.

After the issue of the notice, many institutes had taken action and a substantial improvement was expected in six months, he added.

AICTE planned to assess professionals passing out from technical education institutes after they entered the industry to get industry feedback and thereby do secondary assessment of the institute.

This was done in USA and was needed to get full membership of the Washington Accord, he said.

Talking on the industry-academia interface, S S Chakraborty, managing director of Consulting Engineering Services (CES), said that industry had to take the responsibility for training technical students in basic sciences to make them fit for industry.

CES, in collaboration with the National Power Training Institute (NPTI), ran courses for students to train them for the power industry.

The course had already taken off in Faridabad, and would soon start at Durgapur, and subsequently spread to all the 12 campuses of NPTI.

The state would like UGC to allow vocational courses at higher education institutions, the minister added.

The meet was held to enhance industry-academia interface.