COIMBATORE: A total of 275 engineering colleges across the country applied for closure this year, said chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Anil D Sahasrabuddhe on Friday.The maximum number of institutions that have applied for closure are from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. "The number of institutions are almost equal from all states. Tamil Nadu and Andhra alone have more," Sahasrabuddhe said here.In the past two years, the AICTE has been actively working on reducing the quantity of engineering institutions across the country. The regulatory body has also reduced the penalty for closing down an engineering institution that was a deterrent for many colleges which were willing to shut in the midst of poor demand.Sahasrabuddhe was in Coimbatore to inaugurate a teacher training programme on e-learning at Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology.An initiative of the AICTE under the Union ministry of human resource and development, the teacher training programme is a pan-India exercise. "A total of eight programmes are being conducted where we are training faculty members from selected institutions on e-learning. And, these faculty members will train their colleagues at their respective institutions," said AICTE director Mandeep Singh Manna.The teacher training programme will aim at equipping faculties of engineering institutions on using digital platforms like Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) for higher education. "There are about 280 subjects in SWAYAM so far, and about 350 subjects are ready to be introduced. We are looking at having 2000 subjects in the next two years," said the chairman of AICTE.The Union ministry of human resource and development has passed a regulation to introduce choice-based credit system where the student is allowed to choose courses of his choice from SWAYAM and earn credits for it.Faculty from institutions across the country are working or preparing the modules for each subject. "Interested faculty has to first send a three-minute video to us about the module which will be scrutinised by an expert committee. Thereafter, we will decide if the faculty can be allowed to prepare the module for that particular subject," said Sahasrabuddhe.Asked if the faculty would get credits during his appraisal for preparing a module for SWAYAM, Sahasrabuddhe said, "We will introduce it in the appraisal system soon. Anybody who has taken efforts to prepare a module should be rewarded for it."

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