Stay ordered on ranking of engineering colleges

 The Madras High Court on Tuesday stayed a single judge’s order directing the Anna University to publish the academic ranking of all affiliated self-financing engineering colleges under the Anna University of Technology (AUT), Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Tirunelveli and Madurai.

Ordering an interim injunction on a plea of the Association of Management of Coimbatore Anna University Affiliated Colleges, the High Court bench, comprising justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal observed that the cardinal principle of law required to be satisfied by the petitioner - N Ramprasanth of Manachanallur village in Tiruchy district - was that he had approached an appropriate public authority to address his issue but it kept pending or was dealt with in an illegal manner. However, he had failed to do that.

According to the appellant, without even making a new demand to the concerned public authority by him, the petitioner had straight away approached this court and filed a petition, which was allowed by a single judge bench comprising Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar a week ago.

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Government looks into excess fee claims

CHENNAI: The government on Tuesday met with officials over allegations that some private engineering colleges were collecting excessive fees. Earlier, Higher Education Minister P Palaniappan expressed concern over student protests at two colleges over the issue. His comments to Express came on the sidelines of his visit to the engineering counselling centre at Anna University here on Tuesday.

Over the last couple of weeks, students of two self financing colleges went on a rampage protesting what they claimed was an arbitrary fee. “We are being charged extra amounts under new names like administration fee etc. Moreover, they charge us exorbitantly for transport even for short distances. When we say we don’t need transport, they refuse to let us travel to college on our own, saying it is compulsory. Most of us are from middle class backgrounds and depend on loans,” a student told Express.

But, officials criticised the violent method of the students to resolve issues. Experts said they cannot intervene until a plaint is filed by a student or parent. “We hear about this issue only in the media. So far not a single complaint has come to us,” said Anna University V-C Mannar Jawahar, .

But students have a different reason for not complaining. “Filing a complaint could put us in trouble as they might corner us and spoil our studies later. We wanted to make ourselves heard, which is why we decided to protest,” said a student of a college in Mangadu.

Managements say that the hike was essential owing to rising costs and to improve infrastructure. But there has not been any revision in engineering fees in the last five years. “Even a marginal hike will evoke strong protests. Hence, there has been no move in the last few years to revise fees,” a senior higher education department official said.

The fee for B.E / B.Tech / B.Arch under government quota was left unchanged for 2011-2012 at `32,500 for non-accredited courses and `40,000 for accredited ones by the fee fixation panel for self-financing professional colleges headed by Justice N V Balasubramanian. The fee for management quota seats continued to be `62,500 as in the previous year.

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Admissions officers crossing the line

Former university admissions officers are being faulted for leaving their positions and taking lucrative jobs at private education facilities, enticing students and parents by being experts in the college admission process.

As a blatant example of this, a former admissions officer at Korea University surnamed Park obtained a job at a college admission consulting institution identified as “T” in southern Seoul in June right after leaving his job at the university. The institution received about 3 million won ($2,840) for four consulting sessions run by Park.

A director of a hagwon near T said, “As [Park] has been working in the field, selecting students for the university until recently, he knows extremely well how to prepare and write up documents for university admissions.”

In 2009, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, in an effort to cool the country’s overheated private education system, known as hagwon, had established a new admission officer system that was to diversify standards for evaluating students and decrease reliance on the private education system.

Although Park’s actions - and the similar actions of other admissions officers - are being criticized as unethical, there are no legal measures to prohibit such phenomenon.

The public is criticizing the government for having no measures to regulate such unethical acts that foster private education when the object of the system was to curb private education in Korea.

Moreover, as 78 percent of admission officers in 60 universities throughout the country that have adopted the system are contract workers, there’s a high turnover rate of employees and most are now looking for posts in the private education industry.

The Education Ministry said that it will come up with a code of ethics and a system of incentives for universities that employ admission officers as permanent workers.

“We have decided to cooperate with the Korean Council for University Education to investigate the current status of former admission officers from all 60 universities throughout the country that adopt the system,” Jeong Jong-cheol, director of the college admissions system at the Education Ministry, said yesterday.

“In the meantime,” Jeong said, “we will also make efforts to pass the revised bill that would prohibit former admission officers to work in private education facilities at the provisional session of the National Assembly in August.”


By Yim Seung-hye, Park Su-ryon [sharon@joongang.co.kr]

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AKU court approves move on affiliation-Indian Express

Aryabhat Knowledge University (AKU) court on Saturday decided to grant affiliation to different government technical institutions, including medical and engineering colleges, from 2011-12 session.

AKU court (Senate), at its meeting held here under the chairmanship of vice-chancellor S N Guha, approved the executive council (Syndicate) decision to grant affiliation to three private technical institutions of the state.

HRD minister P K Shahi, who also attended the court's meeting, said that the state government would write to its technical institutions to get themselves affiliated with AKU as soon as a university's resolution to this effect is received. He also pleaded for some amendment in the university's statutes with regard to affiliation of an institution with AKU. Shahi observed that court's decision on affiliation should be final and the same should not be sent to the government for approval.

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BEd exam schedule worries students-Indian Express

 The students are a worried lot due to the rigid examination scheme proposed by Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj University for the BEd course. The students are in dilemma whether they will be able to revise the syllabus without any gap in the examinations schedule.

As per the proposed examination scheme by CSMU for BEd this year, the examinations will start from July 27 and end in the second week of August and there is no gap. This has increased academic burden on the students.
"I am confused that how will I manage to revise the whole course content as the syllabus is quiet lengthy and it's impossible to revise the whole content in a single day," said Nupur, a student appearing in BEd exams. The list of such students is long.

"I teach in a private school and got very less time to study in the middle of the session. Though I took a month leave, but after seeing the scheme, I think I will fail this year," said Renu, another student. Though many student unions had requested vice-chancellor HK Seghal for bringing flexibility in the examination schedule but no action has been taken.

"I had requested V-C to make the BEd scheme a bit flexible for the students but I have received no reply from the university authorities," said Ashish Pandey, an RTI activist.

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Common entrance test for all private varsities mooted - Indian Express

The first-ever conference of university Vice-Chancellors, including private universities and Himachal’s only Central University, organised here favoured Common Entrance test for admissions to private universities, beside adopting uniform pattern of teaching programmes.

The conference held at the initiative of the Himachal Pradesh University’s Vice-Chancellor ADN Vajpai to mark the 42th Foundation Day celebrations of the varsity also proposed for introducing only those courses which are in demand.

The Vice-Chancellor admitted the need to maintain high standards of teaching, introduction of faculty exchange programmes and organising frequent workshops and conferences for ensuring quality education.

There was also a proposal to form an organisation of the vice-chancellors to boost cooperation in higher studies.

State’s education minister ID Dhiman, who presided over the conference, made it clear that the state government would not compromise with education quality in private universities. He also said the government was serious about curbing politics and violence on colleges.

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Karunya University ranked among top private colleges in India -South Asia Mall

A Christian minority institute has ranked top among private colleges in South India as well as across the country. 

Karunya Institute of Technology ranks 21st of the top 50 private colleges in India, according to a comprehensive survey conducted by the Indian Express. The ranking is based on several academic indicators. The Indian Express daily also placed Karunya Institute on the 10th position among the top 25 private colleges in South India. Others in the list included Bangalore Institute of Technology, Hindustan University and IIT Hyderabad. “The institute’s ranking is a reflection of our teamwork and dedication. We are extremely proud of our achievements and we want to set the bar much higher than we have in the past,” commented Paul P Appaswamy, Vice Chancellor, Karunya University. He said the institution will work harder to fulfil its vision to impart holistic education and a morally strong and academically supportive environment. Began in the year 1986, Karunya Institute in the past has been ranked top on several surveys, including Data Quest magazine’s ranking on infrastructure among institutions, placing it two places ahead of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Founded by late Dr. DGS Dhinakaran, Karunya Institute of Technology has about 430 teaching faculty and some 7200 students being raised of high academic calibre. Located about an hour's drive from Coimbatore, this "A" grade institution (by NAAC) has produced thousands of outstanding professionals in the past 25 years. The Christian minority institution has excellent infrastructure and resources on its fully residential, co-educational campus of 700 acres at the foot of the Siruvani hills. In 2004, the institute was awarded the Deemed to be University status in recognition of its academic excellence by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. 

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Cabinet defers decision to grant private university status to Khalsa College - Indian Express

Cabinet defers decision to grant private university status to Khalsa College

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