Lack of teachers at engineering colleges

BANGALORE :The private professional college managements which often fight for seat sharing and fee structure for undergraduate engineering courses seem to be least bothered to recruit sufficient teachers. A recent report by Local Inquiry Committee (LIC) submitted to Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) reveals that many private colleges do not have sufficient number of teachers.
More than 70 LICs were constituted to inspect around 220 engineering colleges affiliated to VTU across the state. Each LIC had a group of five experts from the field. The report prepared by these LICs which is now available with Express reveals that most of the colleges, including prestigious colleges that claim to have below 50th ranks in All India level do not have teachers, especially Professors, Assistant Professors and other teachers with PhD. In many private engineering colleges, the faculty members are just a bachelor degree holders. Though AICTE norms stress on a Master's degree, they allow a BE degree holder with 75 per cent and above for a couple of years. Many colleges are managing with BE holders who are just pass without distinction. A Computer Science teacher working in a private engineering college in Bangalore Rural district said that she scored 56 per cent in her degree. "If I have scored more than 70 per cent, there was no need for me to work as teacher. I would have preferred a software job," she said.