Out of the 65 engineering colleges approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for closure in 2017-18, only four are from Tamil Nadu. While this can come as a sigh of relief to the thousands of parents who aspire to see their children become quality engineers by studying in any college in the State, academics say that this is just the beginning of the downhill syndrome.
This is because the AICTE has decided to shut down a total of 800 engineering colleges in a staggered manner, beginning 2018-19. This comes as a result of over 27 lakh seats lying vacant in various institutes across the country. The AICTE has said that the decision has been taken after carefully studying the intake pattern of colleges for the last five years and as a step to improve the quality of engineering education.
The 65 that have been asked to close down fall in the progressive closure category, i.e. the college can no more admit students in the new batch but existing students will continue till the end of the course after which the college will be closed. While full closure is just about to begin, progressive closure of institutes has been on since 2014-15. This is besides the 150-odd colleges that have been winding up voluntarily every year.
According to the AICTE parameters, all colleges with less than 30 per cent admission in the past five years will either close down or get merged with a nearby college or will be bought out by performing colleges. Sometimes the colleges can alternatively turn into polytechnics or transform into arts and science colleges.
There are over 10,363 engineering colleges in India. Thousands of engineering seats go vacant each year as supply outstrips the demand. While this may be attributed to the poor infrastructure and quality of teachers, the reverse in also true. Some reputed colleges approach the AICTE to close down streams that do not have demand.
The move of the AICTE has led to many colleges seeking grace time to improve themselves. The reason behind this decision of the AICTE is seen as a move to shut down non-performing colleges and divert the provisions and resources to the performing ones.
One only has to visit the websites of the Department of Technical Education and the AICTE to know the figures of the colleges and the seats.
Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe, AICTE Chairman, in the meanwhile, is initiating alternative measures to improve the quality of the existing technical education. He has suggested that a lecturer taking up a teaching job in a college has to undergo a six-month compulsory training. This is because even though very well qualified people come for teaching, they do not have experience in teaching and training efficient engineers.
There is also another suggestion that every engineering student, in the second and third years, should undergo compulsory internship so that they are observed by companies and get a better chance of being hired. This is being seen as a better way of selection rather than the placement process that happens in colleges.
Though the number of colleges from the State are not high in the 65 listed out by the AICTE, academics say that many college chairmen want to either close down or sell out as “it is increasingly becoming difficult to manage” these institutions.
Some academics in Tamil Nadu welcome the move of the AICTE. “This is a must. If colleges are not good they have no business to continue. When students do not come there is no income and hence the college will not be in a position to provide infrastructure or pay the teachers. Placement levels have gone down because there is not enough skill training,” says a former Anna University Vice-Chancellor.
But what happens when a college is asked to close down ? The land and infrastructure put up goes unutilised unless someone is willing to buy it and run it. The fate of the teachers who lose jobs becomes a question. There is this hope that the AICTE would facilitate the closures “without too much hardship for the managements”.
But there are others who say that there is no necessity for the AICTE to go to such an extent of ordering the institutions to close down. Based on the demand and supply the colleges would eventually choose to do so on their own.
There is also this perception that it is wrong to blame only the colleges for the poor quality output. Says a chairman of an engineering college: “The demand for engineering education has been the same for long. It is just that the number of colleges has increased phenomenally. Why were approvals given for opening of so many colleges ? When there are so many colleges then there is compulsion to admit sub-standard students who come with a cut-off of 165 or less to fill seats. How can you expect colleges to make such students good engineers ? First, approvals are given to open colleges that are unnecessary and now approvals are given to close them down. This is the irony of Indian education.”