Are there any new Engineering colleges coming up this year and any change in the seat capacity?
This year, one college was approved by the AICTE and 14 colleges have become dysfunctional. The total seat capacity is around 3,35,000 for this year.
What about the Task Force report on the status of engineering colleges in AP? Will it be made public so that the parents or students can judge the colleges accordingly?
The final meeting of the Task Force committee headed by me will take place shortly and the conclusive report will be submitted to the govt which in turn submits the report to the High Court and let the public know its conclusions.
What is the Department of Technical Education of the Govt. doing to improve the quality of the engineering education?
As a regulatory body, we conduct inspections through our Task Force teams which led to the improvement in the system. Under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP), 266 crores funding is offered by the union and state govts, where 24 Institutions have been selected for funding of which 8 are govt. institutions and 16 are private institutions. Each of the govt. insitutes gets 12.5 crores and the private institutes gets 4 crores. The funding is also spent on M.Tech students, Ph.Ds, for industry interactions and training which ultimately improve the quality of the engineering education.
Why can’t the govt. rank engineering colleges according to their performance, so that, the students get the official status of the colleges which makes it easy for them while choosing colleges?
There is no official rating mechanism as of now, and it has to come by law. There may be legal complications ranking 685 colleges with some set of colleges, which are denied top ranking might approach courts. If the govt. wants, a survey can be conducted and it has to be purely scientific and must be done impartially and by independent bodies.
What kind of action does the govt. take on non-performing colleges?
The AICTE gives letter of approval every year for the colleges to function and rejects the letter of approval for the nonperforming colleges. The Universities also inspect the affiliated colleges through a fact-finding team and renew their approval.
What parameters should the students keep in mind while choosing a college?
The interest of the student is prominent in the branch selection. If the interest is on chemistry, the student should go for Chemical engineering. If he has interest in Physics then Electronics and Mechanical are the right choices. If the student is interested in Computers, then Computer Science & IT are the better options. If one is interested in huge structures and their design, then Civil engineering is the choice. Unless you are interested in the branch you take, you cannot excel in your studies.
How should a student select the college?
Irrespective of the branch, top colleges have good placement opportunities. Govt. colleges are always better and some private colleges also stand well with the govt. colleges. Let me say a small trick to find good colleges. The Admission & Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) decides the college fees based on the facilities of the colleges and the quality of the faculty. So college with slightly higher fees stands good among the others.
Your advice to the engineering aspirants…
Take up Engineering as a career if you are sincerely interested in science, research and creativity. It is definitely a demanding field with lots of opportunities where sky is the limit. My humble advice to the students is to be prepared to put in hard work, as there is no shortcut to success.
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