National perspective plan for technical education on the anvil

AICTE will come out with a National Perspective Plan for technical education, by which the pattern and requirements of courses and seats would be decided by collecting data from states, a top official said today.
As there was problem in sanctioning new engineering colleges and closing of some colleges following less demand for courses and vacancies, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has sent a circular to state governments to send their perspective plans, so that a National plan could be brought out, S S Mantha Chairman AICTE told reporters here.
Stating that only Maharashtra has responded, "to some extent", Mantha said he was expecting other states to respond at least in another six months, so that a national plan could be brought out three months thereafter.

This would also help AICTE sanction colleges and courses according to the needs of the region and states, so that there would not be any closure of colleges and wastage of sanctioned courses, said Mantha who was here to participate in Graduation Day of PPG Institute of Technology and PPG Business School.
On President Pranab Mukherjee's observation on standards of higher education, the official said AICTE was taking steps to improve the quality of education and in another two to three years, the standards would definitely improve.
At a convocation at the Babsaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow yesterday, Mukherjee had emphasised the need for bringing several far-reaching changes in the education system and for improving quality of higher learning.

A new scheme has been introduced by which students who wanted to pursue Phd, would be given a monthly scholarship of Rs 16,000 in the first year and Rs 18,000 in the second and third years, with a maximum of four years. Under this, students can pursue research in labs, be it National Laboratories, Engineering and Industry related or any other lab.
Moreover, AICTE has also set up 100 Quality Improvement Centres to help students during their research.It was also decided to have National Level Aptitude Phd test for students, so that they could be allotted topics as per their taste and would be given rank and merit,he said.