Hyderabad/ Chennai: During a visit to Chennai last month, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe had elaborated on the problem engineering education is facing and highlighted the fact that nearly 40 per cent seats had gone vacant in India.
“Faculty shortage is the biggest challenge in technical colleges. We do not have quality faculty. This is the case not only in private colleges but in government institutes too,” he said. This declining state has reportedly prompted the move to scale down number of seats by over 40 per cent in next few years.
Accordingly, both Telangana State and Andhra Pradesh are likely to lose 40,000 engineering seats each with the decision of AICTE to cut down seats.
While TS had 1.85 lakh seats and AP 1.80 lakh seats ahead of admissions this year, the college managements in both the states voluntarily surrendered 35,000 seats due to poor demand. With this, the intake came down to 1.50 lakh in TS and 1.45 lakh in AP.
The managements are willing to reduce intake by another 30,000 seats next year on their own.
“The intake in both TS and AP is expected to consolidate at 1 lakh seats each in the next two-three years with AICTE’s decision. This will help to improve standards in engineering education and overcome shortage of qualified faculty,” said Dr Ramesh Nimmatoori, chairman, Consortium of Telangana State Technical Institutions.
