(a) whether the Government is aware of the increasing number of engineering colleges in the country and falling standard of engineering students;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the steps taken to improve the quality of technical education in the country?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DR. D. PURANDESWARI)
(a) to (c): The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has framed various norms and standards to regulate the technical institutions in the country for maintaining quality in these Institutions. The approvals for establishing new institutions, granting extension, new courses, additional intake etc. are granted based on suitability of the application
in terms of prescribed norms for infrastructure facilities and faculty etc. These norms and standards are uniformly applicable to all the colleges. In addition the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) has been set-up to regulate and
monitor the quality of engineering education in the country through a revised accreditation system which is outcome based. AICTE has various schemes for improving the quality of engineering education in the country, namely, Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) scheme for improvement of faculty for Diploma & Degree level institutions and the Research Promotion Scheme (RPS) for promoting research in the field of engineering. The World Bank funded Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme II (TEQIP II) also caters to improving the quality of technical education in the country with budget of `2430
Crore for 200 institutions including 40 private engineering colleges.