Out of the total 138 technical institution closure applications received by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) this year, the council has decided to shut down a total of seven institutes, which includes four management and three engineering institutes. As many as 102 new institutes, which include around 40 b-schools, have been granted approval on the other hand, SS Mantha, chairman, AICTE, told PaGaLGuY on Tuesday.

While two of the MBA institutes that have been given the go-ahead to shut down are based out of Andhra Pradesh, a third is situated in Maharashtra. However, the chairman added that the numbers could still change when the institutes apply for a reconsideration of AICTE’s approval and closure decisions under the First Appeal round. There is a chance that the final numbers might move by a substantial amount post the First Appeal round, Mantha said.

In addition, AICTE has also announced the launch of dual-degree management courses from this year onwards. According to Mantha, a student can opt for the five-year integrated course right after high school. After completing the first three years, the student will be awarded a Bachelors of Management degree. After finishing the fourth year, the student will be given a Certificate in Applied Management and after completing the final year, he will be awarded a Masters in Applied Management.

The student will be given the choice of taking a break of one year after the third year or a maximum of three years after the fourth year to pursue a job and then re-join the course to resume the balance duration. According to Mantha, such a structure would reduce the struggle for management seats after the undergraduate level. Students will be able to gain hands-on experience knowing that their seat is secure.

All AICTE-approved institutions that wish to launch the 5-year integrated course would be given the permission after an approval process. The council has also decided that in the beginning, the council will grant schools permissions of only 60 seats to reduce the likelihood of mismanagement.

Admissions to the 5-year integrated management course would be done on the basis of existing test structures for undergraduate admissions at state university level. “While a nominal approval fees will be charged to the institutes who wish to start the programme, the decision regarding the final tuition fees structure will be left up to the institutes,” said Mantha.

The AICTE also announced a partnership with Microsoft Corporation to launch the latters cloud-based solution ‘Live@Edu’, a networking platform for both faculty and students. Free access would be provided to the entire community of AICTE-approved institutes that includes 7.5 million students as well as 4.5 million teachers.

Nearly one million students have already been provided their e-mail addresses, but the complete access would be provided on a common launch date about three months from now, Mantha told PaGaLGuY. The students will also get free access to Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Professional, Microsoft Exchange Online e-mail and calendar as well as Microsoft Lync Online.

The AICTE is also planning to launch a research portal with the help of L&T; Infotech, the councils e-governance solutions company. According to Mantha, the research portal will make it easy for institutes to detect plagiarism in the students’ academic projects.

The abstracts of the projects will be made available on the public domain. Students will even be able to search for them by typing in keywords, Mantha said. However, it will not be mandatory for students to upload their final projects on the portal. That choice will be left up to the students. Mantha said that there were also plans to start a job placements portal that would help students search for employment after completing their education.

The placement portal will be powered using the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) database of 8,000 industries across the country. Students would be able to upload their resumes on the portal and apply to available jobs using the portal itself.