'VIAT to offer integrated courses'

Govt engineering college to come up in Gangavati soon

 The institute will offer integrated under graduate and post graduate courses, said State Higher Education Minister Aravind Limbavali on Tuesday.

The City has over 80 engineering colleges and there is a need for a Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) Regional Centre, Limbavali said at the foundation stone laying ceremony of one such centre. The focus of the centre will be on research in engineering sciences.

Limbavali said VIAT, the foundation stone laying ceremony for which will be held shortly, will introduce a five-year integrated course for students’ benefit.

“At a time when engineering seats remain unfilled, introduction of an UG course will draw criticism, but there is a need for quality education of university standards. A new government engineering college will be set up at Ganagavati in 2010,” he added.

The minister emphasised on examination reforms in the university to check malpractices during examinations.

“The number of students who opt for basic sciences is very low, thus effective measures have to be adopted to increase the enrollment ratio in pure sciences,” Limbavali observed.

Administrative hub

Vice Chancellor of VTU HP Khincha said that regional centre would essentially be an administrative hub for VTU in Bangalore zone and will have meeting halls for executive and academic council.

“The VTU regional office in Gulbarga will be operational from June 2010. The Mysore regional centre will have a new academy for faculty and joint research lab in partnership with the Sun systems, IBM, Intel and Bosch,” Khincha explained.

Transport Minister R Ashok, who was present at the inauguration said that there have been significant developments in education over the past 18 months. Bangalore has obtained the title of IT and BT capital because of the number of good engineering graduates produced. However, instead of the proliferation of engineering colleges there is a need to have more quality engineering institutions.