HYDERABAD: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Chairman, S.S. Mantha, has made it clear that its policies were country-specific and not State-specific, but at the same time he agreed that necessary changes can be effected after analysing the representations of various stakeholders.

Speaking to reporters here on Saturday, Dr. Mantha said the State government has to take a decision on allowing the second shift in engineering and other professional colleges as AICTE would permit the colleges if they fulfil all the norms.

Second shift

He said the second shift was basically aimed at people who want to do engineering courses, but were not able to find time during the regular college timings. “Since engineering cannot be offered in distance mode the second shift idea evolved.” Responding to uninhibited spread of engineering colleges in the State, Dr. Mantha said though Andhra Pradesh is well covered with professional colleges, there were still 250 districts in the country that were not covered by even a single professional college like engineering, pharmacy or management.

There were several districts that had just one of these colleges. So, the AICTE will continue to stress on spread of professional colleges. He did not agree with the argument that AICTE should contain the growth of colleges as it diluted the quality.

The State government has the mechanism to check quality and it should ensure that quality education is offered. The AICTE cannot restrict permission when the colleges fulfil all the norms, he said, adding that colleges will challenge the decisions in the court if discrimination was showed.