Revision as of 18:52, 15 September 2016

Engineering education

GEEK TRAGEDY: PLOT WEAKENS

(In the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century), engineering education was booming in the country but now colleges are closing and thousands of seats have no takers. Sunday Times finds out how quality lost out to quantity

Hemali Chhapia | TNN

The Times of India 4 Aug 2013

Rangareddy in Telangana region is just about half the size of Pune. But this district of Andhra Pradesh could well be called India’s engineering headquarters. Its narrow lanes boast of over 500 engineering colleges, the largest concentration of such campuses anywhere in the world.

In the last 15 years, colleges mushroomed here on farmland. And the multiplier effect seen in Rangareddy was witnessed across the country as India came to become an engineernation with its 3,800 campuses that have an annual student intake capacity of 1.7 million. In 1947 there were only 38 engineering institutions with a total of 2,500 seats. 60 years on, in 2007, India’s 1,503 engineering colleges had 5.83 lakh seats on offer. “In 2013, India added a total of 1.3 lakh new seats in various engineering colleges,” says S S Mantha, chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body that monitors the opening and running of professional colleges in the country.

But the glory days may have passed. Reports of vacant seats (80,000 in Tamil Nadu; 70,000 in MP; 50,000 in Maharashtra; and 7,800 in Gujarat), and colleges applying for closure are being seen as signs of interest in the field waning. The mood across campuses is gloomy, as placements have been slow and salaries lower. This is largely a result of the deceleration in the IT industry, which had fuelled the boom, and in manufacturing, which has also registered negative growth. “Capacity that was created in anticipation of demand remained unutilized because the economy failed us,” says National Institute of Technology Rourkela director Sunil Kumar Sarangi.

Students now know that all engineering colleges are not equal. Among the biggest concerns is the quality of teaching staff and curricula updated to industry requirements. Many colleges rely on visiting faculty, and teachers often do not have the prerequisite PhDs. An educationist from Tamil Nadu, who has advertised the sale of his four-year-old college, explains that given the AICTE prerequisites, setting up a college (which includes acquiring a certain amount of land, building labs and a library, acquiring university affiliation and hiring teachers among others) is hugely expensive. So until the college recovers those costs, most educators don’t even think of quality. Reportedly, in a 10-year business plan of establishing an institute, quality improvement comes in the fifth or sixth year.

Mantha admits that AICTE is increasingly receiving applications from colleges wanting to close down, but that is not an indication that the sheen of engineering is dulling. “What is happening is that students from rural regions are moving to the cities where they have a better scope of being placed. Colleges in the interior parts that do not have enough teachers or infrastructure are closing down,” he says, adding, “When an 18-year-old looks at his life three years on, he realizes that the chances of bagging a job are the highest if he or she pursues engineering.”

2013-14: 1.3 lakh engineering seats reduced

The Times of India, Dec 11 2015

Seats in engineering colleges reduced because of closure of courses, 2013-15; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Dec 11 2015

Atul Thakur  Engg colleges have cut 1.3L seats since 2013-14

 When 23 lakh candi dates, including 2.2 lakh engineers, ap plied for 368 posts of peons in Uttar Pradesh recently , the story obviously grabbed headlines. Little wonder that the bleak future of engineering graduates is getting reflected in falling student intake and courses offered by engineering colleges. In the three years be tween 2013-14 and 2015-16, engineering colleges have reduced the number of seats by a staggering 1.3 lakh. The student intake has also declined in the same proportion.

More than 23,000 of these seats were reduced because of shutting down of 71 engineering colleges while another 1,279 colleges decreased the number of courses offered for engineering (diplomaUGPG), the answer to a recent question in Parliament revealed. A state-wise analysis of the reduction of seats shows that erstwhile Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana), Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra accounted for 80,000 of these reduced seats.These states also account for the highest number of engineering colleges.

Between 2012-13 and 201415, the number of approved seats have increased from 16.5 lakh to over 18 lakh. This is despite the fact that there is a steady decline in the number of students actually joining these courses. From 10.1 lakh in 2012-13, the student intake dropped to 9.9 lakh in 2013-14 and 9.1 lakh in 2014-15, a decrease of about a lakh.The data also shows that the student intake has gone down from 61% of approved seats in these colleges to 51% over the three years.

Census data shows that in 2011 there were 121 lakh people who had technical degrees or diploma equal to graduation or post-graduation. Of these, 16 lakh were unemployed and seeking work, while another 3.1 lakh were working as marginal workers.Overall, there were 5.7 lakh marginal workers with technical degrees. Experts attribute this phenomenon to various reasons. Unlike other graduate degrees, engineering is a job oriented course and a sustained slowdown reflects on job opportunities and hence student intake.

The increase in the seats despite a lower intake of students could be linked to the fact that many colleges apply for accreditation for both engineering as well as management courses, they point out.The approval alone doesn't guarantee student enrolment as many of these institutes lack basic infrastructure as well as good teaching staff.

2012-15: 20 Odisha colleges almost empty

The Times of India, Aug 15 2015

Ashok Pradhan

Not even 10 takers for seats in 20 Odisha engg colleges

At the end of the engineering admission process across Odisha, around 20 colleges failed to reach the double digits in student intake raising serious doubts about their future. Around 30,000 of the total 46,000 BTech seats remain vacant. While this has been the trend for the past three years, the situation was never this bad.

Shyam Sundar Patnaik, vice-chancellor of Biju Patnaik University of Technology , to which the engineering colleges are affiliated, said he would review the situation and take a call. “While students' interest can't be compromised, we also have to think of the entrepreneurs who have opened the institutions,“ he said.

The admission to engineer ing colleges is conducted by the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination Committee, an independent body , and BPUT has no role to play in it. Though engineering seats lying vacant is a national phenomenon, especially in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra and Telengana, there are certain specific reasons behind the poor admission record in Odisha.

The Odisha Professional Education Act, 2007, bars engineering colleges in the state from admitting more than 15% students from outside the state. “Maybe when the Act was passed, such a cap on admitting outside state students was appropriate. Personally , I feel, the government should review the Act to accommodate more nonOdisha students against vacant seats,“ the VC said.

Secondly , counselling in Odisha is done after other states and universities. “Within the state also, private and deemed universities conduct their admission way before BPUT,“ said Odisha private engineering college association secretary Binod Dash.

NIT Rourkela director Sunil Sarangi said it was a cause of serious concern. “Running these courses will not be financially viable,“ he added. Sarangi said the government must take steps to strengthen school education and reduce dropout rate.

Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)

2015, ’16: drop in number of applicants

The Times of India, Jan 19 2016

Yogita Rao

Number of JEE (Main) aspirants shrinks by over 1 lakh in a year

The number of engineering aspirants registering for JEE (Main) has declined for the second year in a row. It is down by almost a lakh this year compared to 50,000 last year. CBSE, which conducts the national-level joint entrance examination, received applications from 12.07 lakh aspi rants last week. In 2015, 13.04 lakh students had registered for the test.

The fall is even steeper in Maharashtra, where the registrations are down by a third over last year. The state, however, has the highest number of applicants (1.63 lakh) in the country followed by Uttar Pradesh (1.5 lakh).

JEE (Main) is the qualifying exam for admissions to centrally funded technical institutions such as NITs, IIITs and institutions in participating states. Of the total numbers of students taking JEE (Main), the top 1.5 lakh are eligible to take the JEE (Advanced) for admissions to premier IITs. This year, the IIT council has decided to shortlist two lakh candidates. The number of students taking the JEE (Main) has been falling since last year, but till 2014, the exam used to record a rise in the number of aspirants every year.

Experts attribute the fall to the waning interest in engineering and also to the variety of choices available to students in other professions in the last few years. Vijay Singh, former national co-ordinator for science Olympiads and a Raja Ramanna Fellow, said, “For the last few years, the impression that an engineering degree does not guarantee you a job has percolated down to students.

Engineering seats are going vacant dramatically in private colleges in several states. Unless they get admission in a good college, many are not keen.“ He added that fancy courses such as hotel management, law, design, maritime, on the other hand, are picking up. “Students who are keen on research in science are completing their undergraduate programme in science and are going abroad for higher studies to reputed foreign universities.“ IITBombay director Devang Khakhar agreed that students can pursue various interests.

“There are several options available in humanities too,“ added Khakhar. IIT-Kanpur director Indranil Manna, however, said that a drop by few percentage points is hardly alarming. “Many students who are serious about pursuing engineering and are motivated will definitely appear for the entrance test. But a few, who realize that engineering is not their cup of tea, will prefer to stay out,“ he said.

The drop in aspirants from Maharashtra has contributed largely to the overall drop in registrations. Maharashtra was a participating institute in JEE (Main) till higher and technical education minister, Vinod Tawde, decided to withdraw from the test this year.The state's decision to hold its own common entrance test (MHT-CET) for engineering admissions this year may be one of the important reasons for the drop.

HRD Ministry ranking, 2016

The Times of India, Aug 08, 2016

Six cities in India are set to get new IITs. The Parliament passed a law in this regard. The six cities set to get IITs include Jammu, Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Palakkad (Kerala), Goa, Dharward (Karnataka) and Bhilai (Chhattisgarh).

Replying to a debate on the bill, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said that the IITs are the centre of excellence and they will continue to remain like that.

In early 2016, for the first time, HRD ministry released a list that ranks higher education institutions across the country.

The rankings under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) have been divided into four categories: Engineering, management, pharmacy and university.

There were five key parameters on which academic institutes were assessed, these include: Teaching, learning and resources; Research, consulting and collaborative performance; Graduation outcome; Outreach and inclusivity; and Perception.