Thiruvananthapuram: AICTE’s perspective plan for setting up new engineering institutions has proposed evaluator mechanism for steps to improve employability, quality of teaching and learning and institutional infrastructure.
In Kerala, 25,470 engineering seats were lying vacant in 2017-18. Hence, no new colleges and courses should be allowed in 2019. Immediate steps may be taken to improve the quality of education offered by each, it says.
While the total approved intake capacity of them was 55665, the actual enrolment came down to 30,195, which may go up.
Intake increases at an annual average rate of 17 per cent, while the outturn went up only at 15 per cent per annum.
In the current perspective, they find a strong regulatory mechanism inevitable to draw a directional path to enable the overall improvement of the quality of teaching and learning.
It needs to increase the quality and capacity of students at par with the competitive international standards. The trend of mushrooming of engineering institutions is not a promising phenomenon.
The technical education scenario in the state has undergone phenomenal changes in recent years due to the sanctioning of self-financing colleges in the private sector since 2000.
When the eighth five-year plan ended in 1997, Kerala had only 15 engineering colleges with an annual intake of 4,844 students, but at present, there are altogether 169 engineering colleges with an approved capacity of 55,665, which is 3.78 per cent of all India UG student intake.
The growth of various engineering disciplines mainly occurred in the private sector.
In a significant verdict in June 2012, aimed at improving the standard of engineering education in the state, a division bench of the Kerala High Court directed the state government and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to shut colleges continuously performing poorly for the last three years.
The AICTE announced the closure of colleges with less than 30 per cent admissions and put on the chopping block 800 having less than 30 per cent admissions for five consecutive years and lacked proper infrastructure.
