Engineering Education in India – Quantity Vs Quality

With more colleges and less students, engineering institutes and universities across the country have requested the AICTE to stop giving clearance for new colleges. Engineering Entrance Guide gets you the inside story.

Engineering institutes and universities from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan have been writing to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) over the last year, requesting the council not to approve any new engineering colleges in their States, owing to a severe slump in demand. The AICTE is a statutory body whose approval is required to start professional courses such as engineering, management, pharmacy and architecture. AICTE has on its part, taken note of the states’ request and in turn, advised the universities to make a demand-supply analysis and propose how many institutes need to be started in the next 3 year window.

“The AICTE increased the minimum marks for engineering admission in December last year, in the hope of increasing the quality of student intake. This means the cutoff begins at 45 to 50 % for general category and 40 to 45 % for students under the SC and ST criteria. However, I believe this move will reduce the quality of engineering in our country since AICTE should also focus on upgrading the quality of teaching faculty, since engineering is a lot more than a mere degree.”

R Sethuraman, Vice Chancellor, Sastra University, “

“Our findings indicate that the quality of faculty in many engineering colleges is mediocre. When teachers lack employability skills, how can we expect students to be employable? So, it is time that we seriously start looking at the quality of our teachers.”

R Sethuraman

At a time when even the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are unable to fill their seats, at least 3 state governments have declared a halt to the sanction of new engineering institutes in their states since they are facing a problem of many. Karnataka and West Bengal are the other 2 states where a large number of seats in engineering colleges remained vacant last year.

“AICTE lays down norms but fails to look at infrastructure, facilities and human resources in colleges. India is now home to 3,393 engineering colleges that have 14.85 lakh seats available. Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have about 70 per cent of engineering and technical institutes. When admissions closed last year, the council estimated that nearly 2 lakh seats went unfilled.”

V Shiv Kumar, Director of UGC for Latin studies and Jawaharlal Nehru Study Centre

This hole in engineering admission has made academicians worried. This year, the AICTE has relaxed entry norms for tech schools, expecting for increased demand. However, despite lowering the minimum qualification score, doubts still persist on whether all seats will be filled.

“The quality of engineering has deteriorated. Seats are going vacant in rural areas. There are no takers for some particular engineering programmes, although core engineering courses (civil, mechanical and electrical engineering) still have takers. In Rajasthan, the state government has requested AICTE to not cancel the approvals of existing colleges.”

K V Gunvansh, Chairman, Jodhpur Engineering and Technology Institute

This situation has resulted in a toss-up between the quantity of engineers and their quality. While the AICTE declined to comment, the next 3 years will determine whether our universities churn out quality or quantity.