Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (MS)

Mumbai, Feb 14: According to experts in technical education, the sector needs to be thoroughly overhauled as more and more seats in technical education institutes are falling vacant year by year. All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has said that licenses will not be given to set up any new engineering colleges in India till 2022.

The decision was taken by AICTE after it found that more than 50% of engineering seats were left vacant in the academic year of 2019-20. The council has decided not to grant permission to any new technical institute that would offer courses in diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate studies in engineering and technology. This is mentioned in the guideline handbook of the council for the next academic year.

Only 13 lac seats were filled against the 27 lac seats across the country in the academic year of 2019-20. There are 1.8 lac post graduate, 14 lac undergraduate and 11 lac diploma seats all over India.

The main reason is the lack of placement of the engineering and technology students, which has led to the sharp fall in the students taking up these courses. In 2019, just six lac students got campus placement. In addition, 518 engineering colleges were shut down in the four years period between 2015 and 2019. All these factors have made the AICTE committee, headed by IIT-Hyderabad chairman B V R Mohan Reddy to implement the ban on new institutes. This will be reviewed only in 2022 after taking into account the situation at that time.

According to G D Yadav, former vice chancellor, institute of chemical technology the technical education in India has received a major setback because of low standard of engineers as well as the slowness of the industry in general across the country.

In addition to not giving new licenses, the AICTE has decided not to allow any existing colleges to start any new courses or increase in the number of students. Only in exceptional cases like the institutes offering courses in innovative areas the permission will be granted.

According to the report published by AICTE only 49.8% seats were filled in 2019-20. The committee is of the opinion that any further increase in the availability of seats will be just a waste of resources as any new license means building of basic infrastructure like building and laboratories.

In the last two decades the country has gone from giving high hopes to the aspirations of young India to totally contradictory picture of today. In the beginning of the new millennium the country had plenty of job offers for technical qualified people, especially in the IT sector. During these two decades thousands of seats were added every year to professional courses. However, with no industrial progression, now the very additional seats have become vacant.

There was a time when there was a long queue of aspirants to join engineering colleges. However, with the drop in the quality of education and no jobs in sight the engineering courses have not takers. The situation is so grim that even a student scoring zero in entrance exams is welcomed to join engineering colleges. Even then, the institutes are running empty.

The situation clearly needs a restructuring of the engineering field of education in the country.