Engineering colleges slam new Jawaharlal nehru technological university, Hyderabad rules on faculty

HYDERABAD: The number of engineering seats is likely to go down drastically this year as college managements say it will be difficult to hire faculty with PhDs. The new affiliation rules of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTUH), which came into effect, on Tuesday have imposed strict rectrictions on qualification of faculty.
JNTU officials said the rules were necessary to improve the quality of education in the state, but the engineering colleges are against the new rules.
“There are a little over 5,000 PhD holders in the country. Going by the new rules, we will need at least 4,500 PhD holders to fill all the faculty positions. They know we can't hire so many PhDs and introduced the rule to reduce the number of seats,“ Gautam Rao, president, Telangana Engineering Colleges, said. “Small colleges will lose their qualified faculty to big engineering colleges,“ he added.
According to the new affiliation rules, all engineering colleges should have at least one faculty for 120 students. For every additional 60 students, one faculty with PhD should be recruited. M Tech colleges should have at least two PhD faculty for 18 to 30 students.
“In June 2014, we had 376 colleges, now there are only 200-odd colleges in the state. If JNTU fails to relax rules, the number of seats will go drop as colleges will not admit more than 60 students in a branch and the MTech programme will disappear,“ K Ramadass, convener, Telangana Private College JAC, said.
JNTU said they were just implementing AICTE guidelines. “If they can't hire required faculty members, why are they running colleges? We have enough candidates with PhDs, it is just that colleges don't want to pay higher salaries.We are not going to relax these rules,“ N Yadaiah, registrar, JNTUH, said.
Students also welcomed the move as they will get to study under qualified faculty. “If JNTU can implement this, students will benefit. In many colleges, MTech students double as faculty and the knowledge they have is minimum,“ A Alekhya, a BTech student, said.