AICTE to Mandate Accreditation for All Colleges under its Domain

The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) would make it obligatory for all colleges under its territory to get accredited by it.
Colleges would also be required to conduct classes for 10% of the curriculum through the online mode.
The ideas for these moves were upheld during a seminar on the 'Perspective Plan for Approval of New Technical Institutions in the State of Maharashtra' organized on 03 October by the technical education regulator, DTE.
The heads of most of the participant colleges said that they were losing sleep over the vacant seats and the ambiguity on which body they should approach to alter their intake.
The DTE director, S S Mahajan, said that currently colleges have vacancies than before. Last year, around 100 Engineering colleges recorded 35% vacancy in total, and that this year are 264. For diploma institutes, the vacant slot went up from 190 to 275, and that for MCA courses has gone up from 51 to 125.
The AICTE chairman opined that colleges should work for better quality, instead of excruciating over vacant seats. He further said that it’s true that the technical education sector has expanded in capacity over the years, but they are planning for the future. “The average success rate of Class XII students is 50%. If that goes up and you have more students knocking at your door, how will you suddenly increase capacity?" he suggested.
He explained that allowing expansion would only offer a wide range of choices to students, but the colleges that do not perform well in terms of quality will have to fight to survive the education industry.