After beating their chests over increasing seats in engineering, management, pharmacy and diploma courses, the state government is gulping down its throat a bitter pill this year. A total of 25 private technical colleges of MBA, MCA, pharmacy and engineering have decided to close shops and a formal letter has already been sent to the Gujarat Technological University (GTU). The one reason they have echoed is that none of these institutes have been able to get any student this year.
The State government has decided to shelve the Private Universities Bill and instead come up with model guidelines for opening private varsities in Maharashtra.
Even as Punjab government is bracing itself to hold the statewide joint entrance test (JET) for admission to polytechnic colleges, the clamor by private colleges to discontinue the test has grown louder. With less than one-fourth seats being filled than the students taking the exams, the futility of the exercise, proving to be expensive for the cash-strapped government, is being questioned.
In the wake of anomalies unearthed in admissions to two self-financing medical colleges, the governing council of Kerala University of Health and Allied Sciences (KUHAS) has decided to verify the certificates of all students admitted to the colleges affiliated to it in 2012-13 and cross check the list of students given by colleges to the admissions supervisory committee headed by Justice P A Mohammed with those sent to the university for registration during the period.
A number of new private universities with liberal arts programs have sprung up in India. There were fewer than 20 such schools in 2005, and there are more than 100 now, according to a report by Shiv Nadar University.
A month after the Maharashtra cabinet cleared a mandatory 25% caste and socio-economic quota in the Private Universities Bill, the state has developed cold feet over its implementation.
The ruling BJP, in its hurry to sanction permission to establish new private universities in the State, has even bypassed the Karnataka State Higher Education Council by not getting the feasibility report from it to open certain universities.
Suspecting a bigger scam in granting of approval by Dental Council of India to private colleges, CBI today expanded its probe searching premises of three members of the Council's Executive committee and six private dental colleges.
Private engineering colleges in the state have reiterated their demand to fill up 10% seats through management or NRI quota for the 2012-13 academic session.