Thursday, August 30, 2012

Students resent delay in AICTE approval


Students of Parala Maharaja Engineering College (PMEC) started indefinite dharna and demonstration from Monday demanding All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) approval for the institute.
The PMEC was the first government engineering college in south Orissa. It started functioning from 2009 as a constituent college of the Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT). This institute was named in memory of the royal family of Paralakhemundi, which played a major role in the formation of modern Orissa state on linguistic basis.
But it is an irony that even after three years of functioning; the PMEC has not yet got AICTE approval which is worrying its fourth year students who are in the last session. When contacted the principal of PMEC, B.B.Maharathi also confirmed that the institute had not got the AICTE approval till date.
The agitating students sat on dharna at the institute on Monday regarding this issue. They alleged that on May 28, they had met the Vice-Chancellor of BPUT regarding the matter, but till date no major progress had occurred in the path of AICTE approval for the institute.
“We have decided to continue our agitation for indefinite period till we get definite written assurance regarding AICTE approval for our institute”, said Birendra Kumar Sahu, a leader of agitating students.
Meanwhile, Mr. Maharathi rushed to Bhubaneswar to discuss the matter with the State government. He said he would be leaving for New Delhi on Tuesday to meet AICTE authorities regarding approval of PMEC. “Our institute would surely get AICTE approval,” he assured the students.
According to the principal, the PMEC, although a new institute, has no major infrastructural lacking. But its staff strength needs enhancement. It now has faculty strength of 37, but as per the norms of the AICTE its faculty strength should have been 69, including a principal. Mr. Maharathi said the State government has promised to remove this stumbling block.

Students demand AICTE approval for engineering college


BERHAMPUR: Students of Parala Maharaja Engineering College ( PMEC) on Monday boycotted their classes and staged a dharna on the college premises at Sitalapali, on the outskirts of the town. The undergraduate students of the government-run engineering college have launched an agitation for an indefinite period as their institution is yet to get All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval.
They feared that they would be deprived of a government job and also cannot pursue higher studies if their institution is not approved by the AITCE. "We have demanded AICTE approval for the institution many times in the past. On May 28, we had approached the vice-chancellor of Biju Patnaik University Technology (BPUT). He assured us the institute would get the approval," said the agitating students. "We will continue our agitation till the institute gets the approval," they said.

Rs 5-lakh fine for institutes running courses without AICTE approval

This rule will be applicable to courses of 12 months or more once Maharashtra State Unauthorised Institutions Act comes into force
An ordinance for Maharahstra State Unauthorised Institutions Act is ready and it will be tabled in the next Assembly session, said Higher and Technical Education Minister Rajesh Tope in the city on Friday. He also said the government has decided that the state will participate in nationwide Common Entrance Test (CET) for engineering exams from 2014-15 and not from 2013-14 academic session.

He said, "The ordinance for the Maharashtra State Unauthorised Institutions Act is ready and it will soon be presented before the state Cabinet. As per the proposal, any institution running a course of 12 months or more will be penalised if they don't have the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). They will also have to pay a fine of Rs 5 lakh and face up to one-year imprisonment."

As of now, courses in animal husbandry, agriculture, medicine and those related to social welfare/justice will come under this Act. Officials of joint director level will be authorised to initiate action against such institutions if reports or complaints are received. The appellate authority in these cases will be secretaries of the departments concerned.

While certificate courses of nine months duration or more will not be included in this Act, any course of 12 months or more will have to follow these guidelines. "As per the prevailing laws, including the Maharashtra State Universities Act, no concrete steps can be taken to curb the mushrooming of such courses and institutions, so we felt the need for this Act," said Tope.

Talking about the nationwide CET, Tope said, "The state Cabinet has approved the decision to join the CET from 2014-15. We have completely ruled out the possibility of it being done from 2013-14 as it will create undue pressure on students. We will go for a 50-50 weightage format, where 50 per cent will be for marks scored in the CET and the other 50 per cent will be for Class XII Board exams."

Ref : http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/rs-5lakh-fine-for-institutes-running-courses-without-aicte-approval/992958/

AICTE office vandalized over Thane college closure


MUMBAI: More than 25 members of the Yuva Sena vandalized the regional office of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) at LIC Building in Churchgate to protest against the closure of Parshvanath College of Engineering in Thane.
The Yuva Sena activists also allegedly roughed up AICTE assistant director A K Shukla and forced him to give his thumb impression on a letter giving permission to hold classes on the campus at least for this academic year. They were accompanied by close to 100 students from the college, who demonstrated outside the AICTE office for four hours.

Andhra Pradesh- engineering degree - AP stumbles as govt steers 'professional' course AICTE Seats in Andhra Pradesh


HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh can make for an intriguing case study given its love for the engineering degree, a fascination which is not rooted in logic. Currently, the state has 2.78 lakh engineering seats for the 2.02 lakh students who cleared Eamcet-2012. But the large number of seats and students do not reflect the ugly truth of engineering education in AP - just about 48% of engineering graduates here manage to land jobs.
So why has engineering remained the most preferred professional course despite its dismal record? Observers note that the state's emphasis on engineering is a predictable result of centring educational reforms around 'professional education' which has, over a period of time, become synonymous only with engineering education.
What has put tech colleges high up on the priority list of students from Andhra Pradesh is perhaps the myth that Hyderabad has lucrative jobs in IT industry for all who pass out with a B.Tech degree. The fact that medical colleges, which occupied the other bright end of AP's professional education spectrum, have very few seats to offer (in 2012 the number is still 4,845) has also aided the engineering boom.
Further encouraging this slant towards tech education was the state government's populist fee reimbursement scheme enabling students from Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Backward Classes (EBC) to pursue professional degrees for free. This in turn caused an increase in the number of engineering colleges from 375 in 2009 to 717 in 2012 with managements finding it profitable to milk the scheme by drawing funds in the name of even fake candidates. The state at present has 21% of a total of 3,393 engineering colleges in the country.
The focus on professional education, however, dates back to the engineering boom, educationists said. "The whole country had gone through a shift in focus from vanilla degrees to professional degrees and Hyderabad, since 2000, has been a hub of technical education as part of the IT boom," explains VS Rao, director, BITS-Hyderabad. But a decade after the country witnessed the IT boom, students have been focusing on career options other than engineering in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka. When compared to 717 of them in AP, Maharashra and Karnataka have just 350 and 185 tech colleges with, respectively, 1.7 lakh and 65,000 seats. "These states have encouraged other courses like biotechnology, pharma and law. But in AP, the growth of other courses has been blocked as, right at the intermediate level, students are made to take up the MPC (Maths-Physics-Chemistry) stream in pursuit of an engineering degree," said PM Bhargava, former vice-chairman, National Knowledge Commission.
About 60% of an average of 7.4 lakh students who take admission in intermediate colleges in the state opt for the MPC stream. "The number of students opting for the biology, commerce and humanities streams has been falling steadily over the past ten years," said P Madhusudan Reddy, general secretary of the Government Intermediate College Association. In short, the engineering dream is so big in the psyche of AP students that most cannot think beyond it. "Both my sister and I opted for engineering and my parents were sure that we would land jobs. In our colony, most students opt for MPC and go for Eamcet engineering coaching as it is easy to thus bag a seat," said S Sajini who secured 37{+t}{+h} rank in Eamcet-2012.
The state has, however, failed to maintain a good standard of education in tech colleges. "Recent inspection by AICTE has revealed that 40% of colleges in AP do not fulfill even the minimum requirements as regards faculty and infrastructure," said a source in the higher education department. A recent study conducted on the basis of AMCAT, India's largest employability test, revealed that 57% of engineering graduates in AP (among other states) lack basic employability skills like fluency in English.
Sensing a fall in the quality of education, the state government has asked All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to stop sanctioning new tech colleges in the state and neither permit additional seats at existing colleges. However, succumbing to pressure from colleges, the government has increased the fee structure in 67 colleges which are known as providing better education than the rest. "The fee hike has created a catch-22 situation in the state. The government on the one hand promoted engineering education and, on the other, increased the fee only in those institutions which provide better education than the rest," said VARK Prasad, director of Save Education Society.
However, there is finally some change unfolding in AP. Poor placements at engineering colleges over the last few years has led to a drop in the number of students signing up for engineering. From 3.16 lakh students who appeared for Eamcet in 2010, the figure has dropped to 2.83 lakh this year. In 2011, just 2.6 lakh students had appeared for the exam.
Meanwhile, the state is taking up its biggest crackdown on colleges ever. "A special task force will inspect each college and will penalise those found to be in violation of AICTE requirements," said Ajay Jain, commissioner, technical education. But the late realisation might not change the fate of education in the state which has to go through massive structural changes.

Aicte Revamping Pharmacy Education with New Syllabus- Pharmacy Education in India - Pharmacy Colleges - Pharmacy Admission


Bay News Network, Visakhapatnam: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is revamping the Pharmaceutical Education in Indian Universities to help in producing the technical manpower to face the global challenges, said by Prof.S.Y.Gabhe, Chairman of Board of Pharmaceutical Education, AICTE here on Friday. He participated in a meeting organized by GITAM Institute of Pharmacy in GITAM University.
While addressing the faculty and students he briefed that after taking suggestions inputs from various eminent academicians and industry with a view to cater the existing, as well as, growing needs of the industry profession AICTE has prepared a model course curriculum/syllabus for B.Pharmacy and M.Pharmacy programs. He informed that the Syllabus will cover new areas like Bio statistics, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Basic Electronics and Computer Applications. We strengthen the Organic Chemistry part in new syllabus to improve the employment opportunities to the students. The new syllabus may come into force from this academic year. He said that the Board of Pharmaceutical Education is also planning to organize workshops, orientation programs to faculty members on new syllabus. He has categorically emphasized that the text books and reference books of international standard need to be followed instead of small hand books of lecture notes or user friendly books of general authors. He observed that the ICT enabled learning with innovative teaching methods are very essential to meet the modern teaching needs. He observed that compare with state Universities the Deemed Universities are active while implementing the new courses and curriculum. He emphasized the need of academic research in Pharmaceutical Education in Universities. He said that the University relations with industry will improve the teaching and research.
The Institute of Pharmacy Principal Prof.P.Suresh briefed about the Institute and said that the University is planning to start a drug manufacturing unit in the campus to train the students.
Reference From : 

Registrations for the Common Management Admission Test - CMAT Last Date - CMAT Syllabus - CMAT Marking Scheme

AHMEDABAD: Registrations for the Common Management Admission Test (CMAT) will be accepted till September 2. The CMAT has been made compulsory for students seeking admissions in MBA and MCA colleges approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) from 2013-14.

The CMAT will be held on October 1. Officials said that students will be able to download their hall ticket number by September 15. The results will be declared on September 17.

Officials said that the CMAT will be held at four centers — Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, and Rajkot. The CMAT paper will be of three hours and account for 400 marks. The paper will have 100 questions.

For the first time, the CMAT paper will have the provision of negative marking. The paper's medium will be English as the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET) was also in English.

After CMAT, students will not have to appear for the local GCET and myriad management entrance tests favored by management colleges all over the country. The GCET was conducted by the Gujarat Technological University. The CMAT will be conducted by a national agency.