Anna University to finalise its affiliated college before engineering admissions this year

With admissions to the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to begin after July 31, Anna University will be finalizing its affiliated colleges including adding new technical institutions for the year 2021-22.

At present, a total of 551 government, government-aided and self-financing colleges were affiliated to Anna University, which offers 28 Under Graduate (UG) and 77 Post Graduate (PG programmes). The affiliated institutions also offer provides 43 UG and 59 PG programmes with 3.69 lakh students on roll.

Any new college seeking affiliation for its academic programmes or existing institutions applying for affiliation for an academic programme or for variation in intake in an already affiliated course should get the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which is a separate process.

A senior official from the Anna University administration wing told DT Next that affiliation inspection by Anna University will be conducted anytime in the first week of July 2021.

Claiming that for the new academic year more than 50 new colleges have approached to get affiliation from Anna University, the official said "accordingly, for new applications, the inspection authorities will ensure that the land area of the campus in the urban area should be minimum of 2.5 acres", he said.

Stating that apart from checking classroom infrastructure, required basic amenities in the campus, lab facilities, auditoriums, library size, latest management information system, central exam facilities, fire and safety measures, hostel facilities, the official said: "availability required trained faculties to train the students, plans for placement for the students, industry linkage, games and sports facilities and among others will be verified by the inspecting authorities before giving approval to the institutions".

On the extension of affiliation of the colleges, the authorities will also ensure the pass percentage of the students for the academic year 2020-2021 in that institutions and whether the institution will able to handle offer new courses that were applied to offer to the students in 2021-2022.

Pointing out that after conducting inspection and verifying all the documents of the colleges for both new and extension of affiliation, a final list would be prepared and would be submitted to both AICTE and the Higher Education Department so that the admissions for the new academic year could be able to begin from August 1.

"Suppression or misrepresentation of information by any institution will invite appropriate penal action", he said adding "the institutions were also instructed that the mandatory disclosure about the infrastructure availability should be available free to view or download to the students without any restrictions".