CET to stay: AICTE Chief

CET to stay: AICTE Chief

Chennai: Prof Damodar Acharya Chairman of All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has made it clear that the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to engineering courses could not be scrapped by Tamil Nadu Government.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the 27th convocation of Anna University here on Monday, he said, “The Supreme Court has said that the students have to clear the CET for admission. So, the test would be held for the 2007-2008 Academic year. As such, the State Government cannot scrap the test.”

Stating that there was a shortage of teachers in various institutions, Acharya said, “We are also planning to start regional and nodal centers for training teachers. We are permitting retire teachers. We are permitting retired teachers to work till 70 years of age.”

The AICTE had increased the student’s intake in the engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, as there was more demand here. “We want to empower the stakeholders, particularly students. For this, we have ordered mandatory disclosure by colleges on the facilities offered to the students as they are the best people to control the institutions,” Acharya Added.

Earlier, in this convocation address, Acharya said that only 4.1 out of 10,000 populations were pursuing technical education in the country. “This figure is very less compared to the 15 to 20 percent in the developed world,” he added.

The AICTE Chairman said that unlike engineering institutions, the growth in polytechnic level of education has rather been slow. “We have currently 1,250 polytechnics with an annual intake capacity of 2, 77,507. Poor employability of diploma holders is encouraging them to seek a degree through lateral admission,” Acharya said.

Similarly, the growth of ITI level admission has also remained static. “Core engineering disciplines of civil, mechanical engineering have seen hardly any growth. As a result there is an acute shortage of manpower in these disciplines,” he said.

CET to stay: AICTE Chief

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