HYDERABAD: Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday expressed concerns on the oversupply of engineers in the country. He added that engineering education was becoming a business, with colleges running with empty halls and no students.
He then went on to say that students from the IITs had been receiving good placement offers this academic year, which indicated that the job market had taken an upward turn.
Educational experts in Telangana say that while the students of premier institutions are able to secure lucrative jobs, there is much disparity in engineering education, as a result of which students of other colleges are not afforded the same opportunities.
Members of the Engineering College Association say that although the minister has spoken about the indiscriminate approval of colleges, the government has not taken any steps to curb that practice this academic year.
“The government has approved two or three new colleges in TS. What is the assurance that by reducing the number of seats, the quality of education will improve? Instead, the number of colleges should be controlled,” says a member of the association.
A. Venugopal Reddy, the vice-chancellor of JNTU, says, “At the time of formation of TS, we had over 2 lakh seats, which meant that anybody could enter the course. With fewer students, more skill-development courses can be planned and administered alongside engineering courses, so that graduates have more employment opportunities.”
N. Narayana, the president of the Telangana Parents’ Association, says that the quality of education has dipped with the influx of private colleges. “Quality education is not being provided in the field of engineering, which is sad. Curriculum should be updated at least biennially, as the minister has proposed,” he says.
Professors have approached the All India Council for Technical Education seeking that engineering colleges be made to follow a curriculum that is regularly updated. Professor Praveen Mathew says, “The model curriculum provided by the AICTE is good; however we should ensure that all colleges follow it.”
There is no use of teaching our students the same thing over and over again without including the latest research and innovations.” He says that many young engineers are faced with unemployment and this problem can only be overcome if they broaden their sphere of knowledge beyond the standard curriculum that has been followed for years.
