'First state to grade engineering colleges'

In Conversation

Born in a nondescript village in Ambed, Pune, N B Pasalkar has come a long way. As Director of Technical Education, Maharashtra, he tells how he plans to give technical education an impetus. Excerpts...

How do you plan to upgrade management education in the state?

The directorate has appointed a committee in order to grade B-schools in the state. A common complaint is about the fee structure of the B-schools and we are looking in to this matter. Though most of the institutes decide their own fee structure, we have devised a 'sikshan shulka samiti' which takes up the job of scrutinising the fee charged by an institute. This will ensure that institutes do not operate with only profits in mind. However, we will ensure that there is a reasonable surplus available for the institute to sponsor its various activities.

How will grading help?

We are the first state to grade engineering colleges. I have also appointed a committee to grade pharma colleges. We have displayed the grading format on the website. There are various parameters we would take in consideration before grading the institutes "� like the appointment of directors, faculty, availability of computers and Internet, updating libraries and availability of canteen facilities. We will also consider which institutes are calling in experts from the field and encouraging live case studies and industry-academia interface. Also we will look at how many entrepreneurs the institute has churned out. The salary aspect of the faculty is also being considered.

The state received Rs 40 crore funding this year as compared to last year's Rs 1 crore. How do you plan to utilise the money?

The funds will be utilised for computer labs, libraries and laboratory equipment. Earlier we put an emphasis on having the basic infrastructure in place but now by and large, most of the colleges have it. We now are planning to look at the academic record of the students, their placement records, the qualification of teachers, the number of permanent faculty a college has, et al. As far as engineering colleges are concerned, we have more than 50,000 students in Maharashtra. We are also writing to the colleges to get themselves accredited by National Board of Accreditation to get their courses accredited for three to five years. This will improve the quality of institutes.

Is research a part of your agenda?

We are planning to promote research in engineering, pharmacy, management and polytechnics colleges too. We are encouraging the institute to approach industries and tie-up with them. We sent a batch of 30 teachers to the industry for 60 days where they got a chance to interact with the industry and share the same with students.