College faculty members will receive in-service training to enhance their capability and improve the quality of education, Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy said on Wednesday.
He made the announcement at a meeting of the principals of the affiliated colleges of the University of Madras on Wednesday.
A. Ramasamy, vice-chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education; Higher Education Secretary D. Karthikeyan; University Vice-Chancellor S. Gowri; and senior university officials took part at the meeting that lasted two hours.
Mr. Ponmudy said the aim of the meeting was to improve the academic performance and employability of students.
“We should ensure that our students do well in future. The meeting was called to enable us to take a decision on improving the quality of education. Private colleges manage to bring in industry experts and train their students. We want government college principals and department heads to actively participate in improving the job opportunities of students by providing training,” he told the college officials.
He suggested that they rope in field experts and launch a scheme to train in-service teachers.
The Vice-Chancellor said a few days ago, the university’s planning and development council held a meeting with the participation of former University Grants Commission Vice-Chairman H. Devaraj; former Vice-Chancellor P. Duraisamy; and senior officials of information technology companies such as TCS and Cognizant.
The council suggested introducing industry representatives in the syndicate and the academic council and a strong association with alumni. It also proposed that the university offer new postgraduate courses such as water management and multimedia science and undergraduate courses in data analytics, digital media technology and hotel management.
It suggested research that could be applied and skills development programmes for all courses.
Physical verification
Mr. Gowri said the university decided to inspect all colleges as part of the annual affiliation approval exercise, a statutory requirement. The physical verification was suspended because of the COVID-19 pandemic for the past two years, he said.
During the qualification verification process, several teachers were found to be under-paid, he said. A Tamil teacher with Ph.D was paid ₹10,000, of which ₹4,000 was held back, he said. In some colleges, the principals had been told to work one day a week, and their salaries had been cut.
Earlier, asked by reporters whether the State was adopting the National Education Policy-2020, Mr. Ponmudy said the new schemes introduced by the Chief Minister for students’ benefits were his original idea. “We will not reject good suggestions from the National Education Policy.
