A Talk with Dr. D.N. Reddy, First Vice - Chancellor of JNTU, Hyderabad.

Dr. DN Reddy spares almost 90 minutes of his valuable time to give very possible, useful information on JNTU’s development plans, Finishing school programmes, his experiences and advice to students… Read on

What is the total number of Engineering, Pharmacy, MCA; MBA Colleges affiliated to JNTUH, as on date?

At present there are 254 Engineering colleges under JNTU Hyderabad, after splitting up the University into four main branches. There are 100 Pharmacy colleges and another 50 to 60 collages may add up in this academic year. Almost 120 colleges have applied for AICTE of which 60 will come to the city.  

Engineering has always had upper hand, more so in the last decade because students no longer want to do B.Sc and M.Sc. They prefer taking a professional degree after 4 years which is least time spent on value education. They can be financially independent soon. Recession doesn’t seem to be a threat for them as much it is to the ones who are facing the brunt now because by the time these students graduate the crunch is through.

Also I am hearing many students who have completed a year of IT and Computer Sciences moving to core branches. This year there is a further drop in those opting for medicine and increase in Engineering.

What measures does JNTU initiate to uphold quality teaching in Private Professional Colleges?

Old colleges are not getting good faculty, especially the ones not inside the city. Parent’s income group also matters. We can trace this problem to advent of IT when bright students moved to corporate sectors and never had any interest in teaching. This is one of the prime reasons. Now, with recession many IT professionals are turning to teaching. If you have an aptitude and skill to teach it’s a very good field. Now we have good competition as there is a demand for teaching posts. Though there is need the quality is not really up to mark. There is a huge requirement for good faculty, especially in AP.

How are the communication skills, soft skills and analytical skills?

We are lagging behind in all the three. When I say we, I am including the faculty as well as the students. As graduates are looking at teaching as a stop gap arrangement and not a serious teaching career, with passion for it, the degradation is clear. Looking at this we have now made communication skills and aptitude mandatory for teach. We also have faculty Development Programmes. In this context we have signed a MoU with Wipro Bangalore. We planned at least 100 programmes for this academic year. Wipro is taking care of the funds. Thus, we have well trained faculty. Each session is for 5 days.

When will the instruction commence for I Year B.Tech Courses for the academic year 2009-10?

July 7th is the class commencement for engineering students this year.

What measures the University is taking to compel the Managements of Private Professional Colleges to strictly adhere to the AICTE norms with regard to creating amenities and infrastructure in the Colleges?

Out of the 524 colleges in State only 100 colleges have good infrastructure. There is good faculty only in 60 colleges and the other colleges are just ‘managing’ things. Though we are trying to maintain the teacher student ratio 1:15, it hardly happens. We are severely understaffed in the senior faculty, as we need doctorate degree holders, though we have a good number of the junior teachers. We need to go in for accreditation to streamline the above process.
Earlier education was affordable, now the costs have gone up so did the fees. The fee a private institute receives now is not sufficient for running the college, i.e. infrastructure, salaries, maintenance. etc

Same is the case with Pharmacy. Large contingents are required here. Teachers demand high remuneration to teach here. Hence we take very few students for B Phar or M Pharm.  If there is a good inflow of finance infrastructure will automatically improve.  Within few years from now things should be stabilized.  

What programs does JNTU organize to improve the performance of faculty members in 2009?

With the sudden rise in the number of colleges it has become difficult to look for well qualified staff, that too in large number. We do have retired industry and R&D personnel joining as faculty but it is not sufficient. This problem is rampant in AP only as number of colleges is increasing. We do have more than 70 colleges running M Tech courses which will provide good teaching staff, as almost ten thousand PGs will be coming into teaching.

Several Industry representatives say that JNTU Curriculum is theoretical and Professors do not give priority to Industry Visits. How do you change this perception? What is your reaction to this perception?

It is true, but there is a reason behind this. All these years, campus placements were good and students were going abroad or getting absorbed in a good firm in India itself. So there wasn’t a need for industry visits as industry came to them! Though management and faculty insisted on industry visits students weren’t keen, but now we are going to introduce it in the curriculum itself. Students would be going for 4 to 6 week internship to the industry.

Recently three reputed Engineering Colleges such as GITAM, KLCE, and VIGNAN have been given Deemed University status. How do you foresee the role of these Deemed Universities in the coming years?

Not only these but couple of other institutes like CBIT,JBIET, Gokaraju RangaRaju etc  are also coming up soon as deemed universities. This is because national Knowledge Commission report says that we must have at least 1500 deemed universities in the country against the present number which is 410. In Japan there are 3,600, USA 4,600 etc., Thus we are just 11% in enrollment, and we are far behind. As government alone cannot start they have encouraged many private institutions hence the race of every institute to become ‘deemed’. Institutes like Geetham who have good funds will certainly prosper.

There is a hitch here. Deemed Universities conduct their own tests. The fee is more and naturally funds are more. There isn’t standard test pattern. There should be a JEE common test or EAMCET or AIEEE. University tests are not challenging enough there by allowing even weak candidates to enter the same mainstream as bright ones. Now, bright students are not preferring to go to deemed universities owing to the poor standards. If this continues deemed universities will soon become ‘doomed’ universities.

We have only 230 faculty members in JNTU, while a deemed university would require double that number. Today a university’s success is also dependant on more number of electives it offers. Here we do not have much choice. The only reason why universities in the US are doing very well is that they give a wide choice to the students; they can take the combination of engineering and Humanities too. They can even stay back during the winter and summer breaks to pursue their studies. We have only four electives in JNTU. With this limited choice we cannot expect student’s awareness and IQ to grow.

Of the present Deemed Universities which ones do you rate the best?

IIIT and ISB. All IIMs too. In Tamilnadu it is Satyabhama University. Rest of the universities are all absorbing students in thousands, whilst I find it difficult to run with 320 students! We either have too small numbers or too large. There is a need for a regulatory Agency to monitor all these admissions. This is because UGC and AICTE have failed in their jobs; they are puppets in the hands of politicians. 

Universities should be flexible; grading system must be there, with focus on Humanities and Social Sciences, not confining to core subjects. Well defined curriculum, infrastructure and competent faculty is all required to make a university ‘deemed’. This will attract even foreign students. The only problem we face in Government funded institutes is that we need to nod our head to every caste, creed and financial issues. Well paid staff will never leave an institute easily.

How about JNTU’s Research and Development Activities?

People are hardly interested in fulltime PhD. In JNTU we have about 2000 people registered for part time PhD. This time we have decided to take PhD scholars with remuneration of 10,000 /-pm. We have received about 250 applications so far. Since we are a government funded institute all the norms like, special preferences for SC, ST, women, sports quota etc all come into consideration, and hence we cannot compare ourselves to institutes like IIIT. Moreover, here we have many limitations like salary, though the staff is highly qualified we cannot pay them more.

Many Universities claim that they have MoUs with Foreign Universities but why are they ignoring our Famous ISB, IIMs, IITs & IIITs and other Research Labs?

In Private Institutes there are structured programmes in our graduation or PG level, spread over 4 years. We also have Twinning Programmes, where they do two years in India and other two years abroad. There is also Dual Degree programme. In Five year integrated programme students get both BTech and MTech Degree. We have Exchange Programme in JNTU where 25 students will be selected to do their initial year’s study here and project abroad in country like Sweden.

AP State Council for Higher Education is conducting Entrance Test for Finishing School Program on 13th May 2009 separately. How do you find the relevance of it when it is not part of curriculum?

APSCHE has released about 2000 crore for all universities for the Finishing school. JNTU is working independently on this with 30 industries like, Wipro, Cognizant etc. These resource groups are willing to take up the Finishing School project for us. This will be done for five weeks where all groups like IT, CS Mechanical, Civil Electronics etc will be covered.  We are starting with 50 students in one batch where industry experts will train students; this will be of 40% theory and 60% hands on experience. Not to forget soft skills too, to assure the candidate secures job after the training. Selection is done on the basis of test. If this pilot project is successful we will run it full fledged from the coming year.

How is this different from IEE programmes?

IEE progammes are only project based. JKC scheme caters to limited number of students.

We know, that whey you were Principal of OU College of Engineering, you have established Non-Conventional Energy Cell to encourage Fresh Talents. Are there any such plans for JNTUH?

Before my deputation here, there was a program on Energy conservation here too, but there isn’t any State of art research here. I wish to line up things here soon, provided I overcome the faculty shortage. At present there are more than 40 vacancies in the faculty. This will happen after the election results.

Any move towards Joint Ventures with Private Colleges to undertake Professional Services from Industry?

As I had just mentioned we have a tie up with 30 reputed industries in the Finishing School. Except ECIL all others are private groups.

Why don’t you organize Awareness Programs for Managements of Private Professional Colleges on how and why they should improve the performance of the Institutions?

We have management review meeting to brief the developments; this will be about, teaching-learning practices, best teaching methods, entrepreneur development, curriculum improvisation etc. Since I am only 7 month old here I will have to wait for a while. I would like to reiterate that development/infrastructure of university is directly related to funds. If funds are there other aspects follow.

As on date, we have about 540 Engineering, 250 Pharmacy, MBA, MCA etc Colleges. How to choose the best one?

Lay man’s way is word of mouth, I have now created web portal in JNTU website (www.jntu.ac.in). Students can go to the list of affiliated colleges, get a list of colleges district wise, according to the branch. I cannot rate them as I will be in legal problems, but I have given the AICTE accredited colleges. This is a good enough criterion. It is mandatory for every college to upload their details into this. JNTU is not empowered to rate the college, but we can ask the colleges to display pass percentage, placement details etc which is a good information/clue for the students.

Do you encourage Learn & Earn Policy i.e., working during studies?

Some industries do pay but that is for the bright students only. This happens during internships, it all depends on the caliber/ worth of the students.

Deemed Universities are offering modern courses like Bio-informatics, Nanotechnology etc. Why don’t the State Universities offer the same?

These are excellent emerging fields and it would be great to have here too, but we again have the problem of faculty and infrastructure and lab facilities. We started MTech in JNTU but we are not getting faculty as their salary demands are very high.

What is you suggestion to students, parents, who are anxiously waiting for performance in EAMCET -2009?

Do not confine your students to your dreams. Please find out your child’s interest and aptitude. Do not go in for CS and IT only; core subjects also have a lot of demand.  For students my advice would be to look at the core branches. Also, if you wish to take electronic or electrical, computers branch a background of sound Math is very essential. If math is not your forte` you can go in for Mechanical or Civil engineering. If MBA is your future plan, Mechanical, Chemical and Civil branches are better.  If you wish to be a scientist, aeronautical engineering would be better. For petrochemical, have a chemical background. Thus, chose the branch according to your aptitude.