BE colleges engineer new move

HYDERABAD: With admissions to engineering colleges into its last phase of counselling, nearly 28,000 seats are left unfilled in the state. In a bid not to allow seats to remain vacant, private engineering colleges in AP have decided to persuade the state government to relax certain regulations that would allow them to admit students from other states.
There 252 engineering colleges in AP. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) recently sanctioned four more private colleges, taking the total number of seats available to over 90,000. Higher education officials say that when the third phase of counselling is over, some 15,000-20,000 seats are likely to go abegging.
Members of the AP Association of Engineering Colleges met officials of AICTE in New Delhi on Monday to discuss ways to ease the seat glut in AP. One of the proposals put forth was to market the seats to non-AP students. But certain rules governed by the Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) stand as a barrier to this.
"The Federation of Unaided Professional Educational Institutions of India, an umbrella group of engineering, medical and dental colleges in the private sector, met up with AICTE officials in Delhi on Monday.
In this meeting, the AP Association of Engineering Colleges decided to put across a proposal to APSCHE to allow students from other states to be admitted to seats in AP, on the basis of their Plus Two scores. If seats in the 85 per cent local quota are left unfilled after the final phase of counselling, they would be offered to non-AP students.
If APSCHE approves this proposal, we can implement it this academic year itself," said T Ram Mohan Reddy, member of the Association of AP Engineering Colleges.. However, the proposal has not yet reached the APSCHE. APSCHE secretary M D Christopher said opinion within the council is likely to be in favour of it.
"Of course, there will be discussions and we will refer the proposal to the government. I am positive that such a decision will help ease the problem of vacant seats." Curiously, the seat glut in AP does not square with the large-scale migration of students to colleges in other states.
According to the Indian Science Report (ISR) released last month, the maximum number of students who leave their home state to study engineering are from Andhra Pradesh. This report, by the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), found that around 14.6 per cent of engineering students who leave their home state are from AP, followed by Orissa.
The report also shows that engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have captured the market for cross-state admissions. Since a number of students are migrating to other states leaving a large number of seats vacant here, why doesn't AP throw its doors open to non-state students, as have its neighbouring states?
As such, there is no policy restriction on admitting students from other states to private colleges here under the 15 per cent non-local/management quotas. But the availability of engineering college seats has gone up so much that even the 15 per cent quota left to the college managements in AP is being left unfilled.
Dr K Prabhakar Rao, principal of the Nizam Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, says colleges in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, having been in existence longer, are more replete with facilities and faculty than are many AP colleges.
"That's why AP students migrate to other states. We do need to market our seats outside AP," he said. "Though my son got a good rank in Eamcet, we sent him to Tamil Nadu as there are better colleges there.
Except a few handful of colleges in AP, the rest are not worthy of studying in," said A Sandhya Rao, a parent whose son studies engineering in Chennai. Until now, not much has been done to market AP as a destination for engineering students.