Seats in engineering colleges which have been recommended for autonomous status are turning out to be hot favourite among students at the on-going counselling process at the CET Cell.
For instance, almost all the electronics and computer science seats (GM category) in the 12 engineering colleges recommended for autonomous status have been opted by students within the first two days of the seat selection process.
In fact, at R V Engineering College, students have even opted for traditional streams like electrical, civil engineering even as they had the choice to select electronics and computer science seats in other colleges. Rank holders 1 to 3,000 have selected seats so far.
At the M S Ramaiah Engineering College, Bangalore all seats (GM category) in electronics, computer science, telecommunication and electrical have been opted by students. Similarly, there are no general merit seats available in the electronics and computer science stream at National Institute of Engineering, Mysore; Siddaganga Institute of Technology, Tumkur and Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore.
On Monday, Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) had recommended grant of autonomous status to 12 engineering colleges. It is for the first time ever that students in the State are getting an opportunity to select seats in engineering colleges which have been recommended to be granted autonomous status. Naveen S R who stood fifth in CET and opted for Electronics in R V College of Engineering feels that autonomous colleges with its quality education will attract the best of the companies for campus recruitment.
This opinion is shared by a majority of students who feel autonomous status will go a long way in improving the quality of education.
However, these colleges will have to constitute several academic and governing bodies during the next few days as a part of the autonomy exercise. Each college will have its own Academic Council, a Governing Council, Board of Studies and Board of Examiners.
In addition, the colleges will have to constitute other committees such as the Planning and Evaluation Committee, Grievance Appeal Committee, Examination Committee, Library Committee, Students Welfare Committee, Extra-Curricular Activities Committee, Academic Audit Committee for implementation of policies of the college.
VTU has now dispatched the autonomy statutes to these colleges. As per the statutes, each college will have to constitute a 13-member Governing Council with the principal of the institution as the member secretary. The college management can nominate five members to this body, one of whom will be the chairman.
The Governing Council, will have a wide range of powers from laying down condition of service for teaching and non-teaching staff to deciding on the financial matters of the institution.
The Academic Council will be the apex body for deciding all academic matters like regulation of admission and conduct of examination. The Council chaired by the principal of the college and will have all heads of departments, four teachers, four subject experts, three professors of the university nominated by the vice-chancellor.
The Board of Studies will prepare the syllabi for various courses and suggest method for innovative teaching and evaluation techniques. It will have the HoD as the chairperson, five faculty members, two subject experts, a representative from the industry and one post-graduate meritorious alumnus of the college to be nominated by the Principal.
The Board of Examiners will perform the functions relating to conduct of examinations and other function as assigned by the Academic Council.