The managements of engineering colleges have linked the quality of education to the fees students pay. At the fourth general body meeting of the Consortium of Engineering and Professional Colleges Management Associations of AP here on Sunday, the managements categorically stated that unless the government increases the fees significantly, they cannot provide quality education.
“The government and AICTE repeatedly talk about the need to provide quality education to engineering students, but they have fixed the fee at just Rs 31,000 per annum. Even a play school charges more than this amount. Parents are paying fees for their wards in schools ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh per annum. How can the government expect us to provide quality education in engineering colleges for just Rs 31,000? For that, we need to appoint qualified senior professors, whose salaries are over Rs 1 lakh per month. We are forced to appoint unqualified B.Tech students as teachers in engineering colleges, which is reflecting in the form of poor results,” said Nimmaturi Ramesh, general secretary of the consortium.
In an ultimatum to the government, they said that they would collect fees from poor students who relied on the fee reimbursement scheme, if the government failed to release the first installment (25 per cent of the fee amount) to colleges by July, and will issue a public notice to this effect. They demanded scrapping of management quo-ta and filling 95 per cent of seats in the convenor quota, and the allotment of remainder 5 per cent to the NRI quota. They sought hike in fees immediately as per the SC orders.
“Categorisation of seats as ‘convenor’ and ‘management’ quota seats itself is illegal. The government should immediately abolish this. Also, the government has allowed some colleges to fill 15 per cent of seats under an NRI quota against the AICTE norm of 5 per cent,” Mr Ramesh alleged.