State to review affiliation of 500 colleges

COIMBATORE: Shortly after the five Anna Universities of Technologies (AUTs)in Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Tirunelveli and Madurai are merged with the Anna University, the Tamil Nadu government is likely to review the affiliation granted to over 500 private engineering colleges.“The government is planning to have a re-look at these institutions to assess whether they actually possess the stipulated faculty strength and infrastructure for continuing the affiliation granted to them,” Professor E Balagurusamy, Member (Education), State Planning Commission, told Express on Tuesday.The government is also planning to give a unique code number to each faculty member in engineering colleges and put it online. “If that is done, the movement of faculty member from one college to another can be tracked and misuse of the names of the faculty members by private engineering colleges can be checked,” he said.Criticising the manner in which affiliations were granted by some of the to-be-disbanded AUTs, he charged that “after the AUTs were established, affiliations were granted to some colleges without even taking a look at the documents, records and checking the facilities.” Balagurusamy, who was earlier vice-chancellor of the unified Anna University, believed that malpractices by the managements of self-financing engineering colleges can be largely curbed if the university’s visiting inspection teams of verified the physical and academic infrastructure in a professional manner.“If the inspection team members do a thorough job by verifying the appointment letters of the faculty members and obtaining a written undertaking from them that they will work in that institution for the academic year, the impersonation of teachers can be avoided to a large extent,” he argued.The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has, in fact, gone a step further in its enthusiasm to check duplication of faculty members in different institutions, while granting approval.It has asked existing institutions to submit details of faculty members along with copies of the appointment letter, joining report, UG, PG and other certificates, passport size photograph, biometric image of right or left thumb of principal or director and all faculty members, administrative and support staff, while applying for the extension of approval.Academics recalled that a couple of years ago at an engineering college in Chennai, the Anna University inspection team members had come across a strange case of faculty impersonation. They found that a Mathematics teacher working in a school run by the same management was presented before the inspection team as a faculty of engineering at the college. Besides, two employees of a software company, also managed by the same group, were also passed of as faculty members. Later, the university had disaffiliated the institution for a period of one year.However, such crackdown is sporadic and often managements obtain a court order restraining the university from taking action.