Grades to fix tech college fee.

Grades will decide the fee structure in engineering colleges from this year.

According to the new policy being proposed by the state government, colleges with higher ‘grades’ will command a higher fee and colleges with poor grades will have a low fee structure.

Maharashtra has a similar policy, where fee structure differs from college to college based on the quality of faculty, infrastructure and other facilities offered to students.

The minister for higher and technical education, Mr Damodara Rajanarasimha, on Thursday, made it clear that there was no question of going back on the “grading of colleges” despite stiff resistance from college managements.

“The high-level committee appointed by the state government is already on the job of grading the colleges. We have asked the committee to submit the report within two weeks. We are taking all the measures to ensure that the grading process does not lead to legal tangles,” he said.

The state government has decided to grade the engineering colleges as A, B, C and D from the top, based on the quality of faculty, infrastructure and facilities they offer, and it plans to link the fee structure with the grades.

With the standard in a majority of the engineering colleges being very poor, the state government feels that linking the fee structure with the grades will make errant college managements improve their standards.

The state already has the highest number of engineering colleges in the country (707) and an intake of 2.85 lakh seats.

However, there are hardly 50 to 60 colleges which can boast of maintaining standards as prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

The engineering college managements have been opposing the grading system, saying that it was initiated to target the colleges which seek the payment of arrears that have piled up under the fee reimbursement scheme.

Source : DC