JNTU-H selection norms bizarre

Hyderabad: Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad (JNTU-H) is coming under a cloud following complaints against its Selection Committee Minutes (SCM) sent to different private engineering colleges for the ratification of the qualifications of the teaching staff.

According to sources, the controversy has started brewing following the SCMs deputed by the JNTU-H have been putting their foot down on the eligibility qualifications of staff working in the private engineering colleges.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior faculty member from one of the top 10 private engineering colleges said, "The SCMs are declaring the teaching staff who put in several years of service not fit to teach engineering subjects. When asked, they are quoting bizarre rules and regulations which are in violation of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) norms."

For example, one candidate studied B.Tech in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering (EIE) and Digital Signal Processing Engineering (DSP) M.Tech level. He further followed it up with a Ph.D. in the field of electronics. Now, the SCMs found that the candidate had not done B.Tech in Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE) as his basic degree.

Hence, he is not eligible to teach the electronics subject at the bachelors’ degree level in an engineering college. However, contradicting their own norms, the SCM's had ratified candidates who had studied only mathematics from bachelors to Ph.D. to hold the office of principal of an engineering college, said a faculty member who received the termination notice from his college.

Not only the candidates who opted inter-disciplinary and allied studies in their degrees at the postgraduate and PhD level, but also, those who had completed their MTech from the JNTU-H under 'Sequential Summer School' (SSS) from 2002 to 2010 have been declared not eligible to teach in the engineering colleges.

Currently, the JNTU-H has reportedly slapped notices on about 70 private engineering colleges pointing out several deficiencies coming in its way for granting affiliation for the academic year 2019-20. It wanted them to make up the deficiencies pointed giving time.

In all, about 150 and odd professors in Computer Sciences Engineering (CSE) are badly in need by the private engineering colleges to meet the current demand as per the JNTU-H. "Even if all the PhDs produced by the JNTU-H since its inception and the 100-year-old Osmania University are put together the current demand could not be met," sources from the Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) said.

What is making the aggrieved parties to demand a probe into the entire exercise is that several of the members of the SCMs deputed to the ratification of the qualifications of the teaching staff in private engineering colleges by the university themselves are under qualified.

Further, teaching faculty from the university departments with only MTech qualifications are being nominated as members or chairmen of SCM to validate the qualifications and eligibility of the teaching staff in private engineering colleges of professor's rank with PhDs. “That apart, allegations of some college managements bribing to get ratifications done in their favour are another issue which has become a headache for the university," said a senior official from the JNTU-H.