Engineering
is a career path which is adopted by a considerable number of students today.
Unfortunately, there has been a mindless expansion of the technical education
system and the proliferation of Engineering Colleges has harmed the Indian
Education system a great deal. The number of engineering and technology
institutions increased from 157 in 1980 to 5,194 in 2012 and this number
increased to 5672 this year. The approved admissions jumped from about 4.75
lakh in 2007-08 to 10.66 lakh in 2011-12. The intake per million population
increased sharply from 152 in 1993 to 888 in 2011. Of these, about 85 per cent
are in unaided private sector. In Andhra Pradesh, of 900 technical
institutions, 763 are unaided. Tamil Nadu has 852 self-financing technological
institutions out of a total 955 colleges (both as per AICTE data).
In
the past, the demand was outstripping the supply and it was a sellers’ market
due to availability of fewer seats. The situation, however, is rapidly moving
towards a buyers’ market. Even the IITs and NITs are proliferated by the Govt.
Indeed, with the increase in population the number of colleges are to be
increased, but, in the proportion of the increasing population should be the
criterion. The private self-financed institutions are harming our education
system and it has become everyone’s cup of tea to get a degree. When I passed
my matric and took admission in +1 (non-medical) my friends used to discuss the
difficulties awaiting them and they took arts or commerce in the end. Of
course, engineering is not easy. You have to pass 50 odd subjects in 4 years of
Degree.
But,
some of these private institutions have their own syllabus, their own
examination board and the papers are evaluated in the institute itself. So,
they are making it easier for their students to pass the exams. But, this
system is going to produce engineers which are not competent at all and are
going to survive a long time in ‘the market’.
The
growth of engineering colleges has not been guided by any discernible policy
till date. There have been several concerted efforts to bring some order and
logic to the growth and quality of technical education system. These have not
become successful due to opposition from vested interests. Since, the
market structure is undergoing rapid transformation in India, projection of
technical manpower requirements based on market demand only will not be
possible at this stage. However, it should be possible to evolve satisfactory
empirical approaches to plan the growth of technical education system expansion
at least for the next 5 to 10 years.
