Make Public Rankings of Pvt. Engg Colleges: High Court
The Madras high court has directed different branches of
the Anna University of Technology (AUT) to make public the academic rankings of
all affiliated self-financing engineering colleges in their region. The AUT has
branches in Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy and Tirunelveli.
Justice N Paul Vasantha kumar passed the order on a petition filed by N Ramprasanth.
The petitioner said he was a first-generation learner who completed his secondary
education in May 2011 and wanted to join an engineering course. He was called for
counseling on July 17 but the date was postponed. His grievance was that the rankings
of self-financing colleges had not been disclosed till date. Due to this, candidates
were unable to find out which college had a good track record in academics and so,
could not choose where to enroll depending on the ranking and availability of seats.
While counsel for the university submitted that there was no statutory obligation
to announce the academic rankings of colleges, the advocate appearing for the petitioner
said that though the exact rankings in terms of all the activities, including infrastructure,
hostel, transport facilities, couldn't be assessed, the universities would definitely
have the academic performance of each college and so, could disclose their academic
rankings on their website. Terming the demand reasonable, Justice Paul Vasantha
kumar said the university was bound to disclose the academic ranking of affiliated
colleges to promote students interests, particularly when there were more than 500
engineering colleges in the state. Since the universities conducted examinations
and would have all the records relating to academic performance, the judge said that
if these records were not disclosed, the students would not know which colleges
continued to maintain excellence.
The petitioner was directed to make a representation before the controller
of examinations and registrar of the respective universities within two days. The
appropriate authorities were directed to publish the academic rankings of affiliated
colleges in their region, inform the same to the petitioner and make it public within
a week of receiving a copy of the representation from the petitioner.
Courtesy: Times of India
