It’s Survival of the fittest for Engineering colleges

After years of seeing a massive gap in demand and supply of engineering seats, the country is finally seeing a sort of survival of the fittest, as the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) terms it, among colleges. The council has been finally witnessing the gap close in between the number of seats available and the number of takers for those seats, albeit in a gradual manner.

For the academic year 2016-17, the AICTE has had a whopping 100 institutions coming under it close down in the country, 34 of them offering undergraduate engineering and technology courses. In Karnataka, there have been at least two engineering institutions close down every new academic year in the past five years.

AICTE chairman Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe said many colleges were in fact coming forward either with a request to allow for closure of the college, some courses, or at least a reduction in intake.

“The number of seats have probably reduced by a lakh and the gap in demand and supply is somewhat stabilising now. Wherever we find that the quality is not good, we are not according approval,” he said here on Tuesday.

To make it easier for managements offering to close colleges, the AICTE had reduced the fee for closure from around Rs. 3 lakh to Rs. 50,000, he added.

NAB coverage

The coverage of accreditation by the National Accreditation Board, which will ensure quality in these colleges, stands between a meagre 10 per cent and 15 per cent, Mr. Sahasrabudhe admitted, adding that measures have to be taken to increase this number.

Source: The Hindu

Date: June 26, 2016