Engineering colleges in State to cross 400-mark

[sajiv]

Engineering colleges in State to cross 400-mark

The number of engineering colleges in the State will cross the 400-mark shortly as more institutions are cleared by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

"Currently, there are 375 engineering colleges and the new colleges are being included for the engineering admission counselling. We expect the number to cross 400 by the time the counselling gets over," P. Mannar Jawahar, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University, Chennai, said here on Wednesday.

He was making a brief presentation on the overall engineering admission scene at the 'Mission 10X Certification Ceremony of Wipro' for the faculty members of various engineering colleges, held at the Raja College of Engineering. The intake of first-year students for the current year would be 1.6 lakh, taking into account the new colleges also, he said.

"With all these numbers, Tamil Nadu is the highest among all the States in the country in terms of engineering education. So Anna University is laying focus on the quality of teaching in engineering colleges," he said.

According to him, the university has been working with Wipro to ensure capacity building for engineering college faculty members through the 'Mission 10X Certification' programme.

"There are 27,000 faculty members working in engineering colleges. The training sessions conducted under Mission 10X are practical and purpose-oriented as it develops the teaching methodology in classrooms," Dr. Jawahar said.

S. Nagarjuna, Head, Mission 10X Programme, said the aim was to impart effective teaching skills among engineering faculty members. "Only if the teachers are effective they can turn out employable students. Ours is an activity-based teaching module to empower teachers with good teaching skills," he saidpointed out. So far, the training had benefited 4,000 faculty members of 350 engineering colleges in 10 States including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Orissa.

Certificates were distributed to the faculty members of four engineering colleges in Madurai who participated in the workshop.

G. Nagarajan, chairman, Raja College of Engineering and Technology, and V.C. Ravichandran, Director, Centre for University-Industry Collaboration, Anna University, Chennai, were among those present at the function.