Disallowed Three Bangalore Colleges from Admitting Students for the 2011-12 Batches
The boom has gone bust. For years, engineering colleges added
seats in a frenzy. Now, they are rushing to shut shop.
Ahead of admission to engineering courses, a dozen colleges have offered to close
down departments or take massive cuts in intake as there are no takers. In all,
the cabinet sub committee headed by higher education minister V. S. Acharya has approved
reduction of 700 seats, and disallowed three Bangalore colleges from admitting students
for the 2011-12 batches.
While there is demand for all courses in good colleges, some colleges in rural areas
are not able to attract students for some courses. Several colleges have offered
to shut down information science, telecom and biotechnology courses as it is not
viable to offer these programmes, S. Vidyashankar, member, executive council, Visvesvaraya
Technological University, said. Of the 12 colleges, Bangalore and Mangalore have
four each and Belgaum has two. Three colleges Nadgir Institute of Engineering Technology,
Basava Academy of Engineering and Technology and Sri Belimatha Mahasamsthana Institute
of Technology will not be allowed to admit students this year due to insufficient
infrastructure and inadequate faculty.
M. K. Panduranga Shetty, vice-president, Karnataka Unaided Professional Colleges
Association, says with over 200 colleges and counting, it's a demand driven market
for technical education in the state. If you do not have faculty and adequate infrastructure,
nobody will go come to your college. Today, candidates and their parents know which
college to go to and what to study. They have a wide variety of colleges and courses
to choose from. Colleges can no longer fool students, he says. Last year, of the
76, 000 odd seats, over 14,500 remained vacant in Karnataka. Three thousand seats
went abegging in electronics and communications stream alone, widely acknowledged
a popular course. The cabinet sub-committee dealing with professional colleges on
June 7 allowed five colleges four in Bangalore and one in Mangalore to start second-shift
engineering programmes with a proposed intake of 780 seats. The All India Council
of Technical Education, the regulator, is yet to vet intake for all colleges this
year.
Courtesy: Times of India
