This came into limelight during recent inspections by the fact-finding committees (FFCs) constituted by the JNTU-Hyderabad as part of granting affiliation to the private engineering colleges for the academic year 2024-25.

Hyderabad: Private engineering colleges affiliated to the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University – (JNTU) – Hyderabad are grappling with a critical dearth of eligible principals, raising concerns about the college administration and educational standards.

This came into limelight during recent inspections by the fact-finding committees (FFCs) constituted by the JNTU-Hyderabad as part of granting affiliation to the private engineering colleges for the academic year 2024-25. As per university sources, nearly 40 colleges mostly located in the rural and semi-urban do not have eligible principals.

According to new AICTE norms, to be eligible for principal position, a candidate should have put in at least 15 years of service and ratified as a professor, eight publications in peer reviewed journals and should have supervised a minimum of two research scholars for their PhDs. During the inspections, the FFCs found principals in nearly 40 colleges did not meet the norms and hence termed this as deficiency in its report.

Also, 50 out of 139 private engineering colleges are dealing with a shortage of faculty members to teach computer science and engineering, and allied programmes.

Over the last couple of years, the colleges went overboard and enhanced seats in the computer science and engineering programme given the IT boom and demand among students. However, they failed to find eligible faculty members to teach the programme, affecting the student: teacher ratio.

“Faculty members no longer prefer to teach in private colleges due to less salary compared to IT companies. The ECE and EEE faculty can be utilized for teaching the CSE as per the AICTE norms. This will reduce the shortage of teachers in CSE. However, the JNTU-Hyderabad has not allowed this,” said Aineni Santosh Kumar, president, Telangana Schools Technical Colleges Employees Association.

Meanwhile, the JNTU-Hyderabad directed the colleges with deficiencies to submit an undertaking mentioning that the college will meet all requirements, specifications and regulations of the university, AICTE and State government and submit a compliance report on or before July 18.

“The colleges have been asked to maintain biometric attendance from July 19. This attendance will be considered from July 20 till the date of issuance of deficiency letter pertaining to affiliation for the academic year 2025-26. If colleges fail to comply with norms, the university may suspend affiliation, reduce seats or courses for the academic year 2025-26,” said a senior JNTU-Hyderabad official.