VTU, Belgaum (Visvesvaraya Technological University) is the most prominent term in the context of Engineering Education in Karnataka because it is the lone University in the same area. VTU has forcibility become a dominant term even in minds of intellectuals in our state, irrespective of the fact whether you like it or not. The overall standard of engineering education in Karnataka partially depends on the standards set by the VTU ‘people’. I am not making any statements regarding the standards of our university in this essay.
Visvesvaraya Technological University came into existence with the assistance of Karnataka State Government and continues to be under its jurisdiction. All colleges under VTU have the same syllabus and lab apparatus. There were about 190 engineering colleges in our state in the year 2012. Apart from Manipal University and NITK Surathkal, all engineering colleges in Karnataka are directly or indirectly affiliated to VTU.
There are two types of colleges under VTU - the first category is ‘autonomous’ and the other one is ‘directly affiliated’. Both of them enjoy vastly different amounts of acceptance, but are equally popular terms.
Autonomous colleges set their own question paper for final exams and the correction is again done in the same college. Autonomous colleges do not have external question papers with external correction. All famed and old colleges come under the autonomous scheme. There were five autonomous colleges under VTU till the year 2008 and there are twelve colleges at present.
Colleges which are relatively new and are of lower repute come directly under the University. These colleges have external theory and lab exams during each semester. Approximately ninety five percent of engineering colleges in Karnataka come under this scheme. Association with a common university has brought uniformity in standards among colleges located in different parts of our state.