Bhubaneswar: Mushrooming engineering colleges sans quality education dovetailed with diminished job prospects have taken the sheen off the technical education in the state.
A large section of youth is disinterested in pursuing engineering courses which has taken a heavy toll on the once ‘guaranteed job sector’.
The situation of vacancies in seats at the engineering institutes across the country came to such a pass that the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had to put brakes on granting permission to setting up of new engineering colleges for two years. The direction comes against the backdrop of 50 per cent seats in engineering colleges across the country remaining vacant.
Skill Development and Technical Education (SD&TE) Minister Premananda Nayak has informed the Assembly recently that 19,429 seats out of the total of 31,174 seats – over 60 per cent – in 93 engineering colleges in Odisha have remained vacant in 2019-20 academic year. Only 11,745 seats were filled, said the minister.
Similarly, the previous academic year saw 80 per cent engineering seats vacant after completion of admission by Odisha Joint Engineering Entrance (OJEE). It’s also worrisome that as many as five engineering colleges in the state have been shut in past four years.
Educationist Basudev Bhatt told Orissa POST that presence of large number of engineering colleges is the primary reason behind seats remaining vacant. Besides that, out of many trades like Mechanical, Computer Science, Electrical, Civil, Electronics, Bio-Technology, Bio-Med and Architecture, there are a few branches like Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Science which are popular ones.
“The remaining trades fail to attract students. Another contributing factor to the abysmal condition of empty seats is the lack of proper infrastructure and well-trained faculties. The AICTE should focus on monitoring of faculties in the engineering colleges,” Bhatt
maintained.
Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) secretary Binod Dash said, “Despite several of requests and proposals from the colleges to the state government for opening up of centres of excellence in every engineering college by spending more than Rs 40 crore which had been collected from OJEE, the government has not taken any such step. Similarly, money was also raised for infrastructure development at BPUT. Out of around 25 lakh seats across the country only 7 lakh were filled. So, Odisha is in a better position than the rest of India.”
An official of Odisha Engineering College (OEC), which got only 18 students against a total of 690 seats this year, said that it is a big cause of concern and “we are in talk with the government for some drastic measures.” Jhulan Ganguly, an Electrical Engineering pass-out-turned-senior-analyst in an MNC, said “Engineering has lost its popularity unlike medical. Once considered ‘the cream of the society’ is now struggling to get back its lost glory. Engineering colleges are no more the brain factories. They have been turned into easy ways to mint money in the name of assured jobs by brokers in education industry. The private colleges entice the gullible parents and their wards by showing lavish and luxurious set-ups and loot the hard earned money during the four-year period.”
Many colleges have professors without due proficiency. Low paying jobs, fake companies and even zero placements have become a usual phenomenon so far as campus placement is concerned. Other professional courses like CA and MBA have taken edge over good old engineering aspiration, he added.
Ashmita Khillo, a Computer Science engineering pass-out from Koraput, said, “In Odisha, seats are vacant as there is lack of industry, software companies and mass construction activities. Unavailability of employment opportunities in industries adds to this. BPUT syllabus and standard of education are far behind that of other national universities. The state government should take steps to improve the course quality which I think will help improve the
situation.”
Satyabrat Mohapatra, an engineer-turned-comedian said, “B Tech as a career option has reached the saturation point. Degradation of quality education can be seen as a factor. Huge number of students per class dilutes the quality of participation in practical classes. Since IT sector is also reaching the threshold, this has caused low placement ratio in comparison with previous years. Hence, B Tech has a relatively bad return on investment. I am a B Tech myself but now I’m pursuing the career of standup comedy.”
Parag Abhisek, an Electronics and Telecommunication engineering pass-out now studying MBA, said, “Engineering is no more the prime stream of studies as it was two decades back. There was a time when engineers were highly spoken of but now the situation has changed drastically. Throughout the country, it has always been the IITs, NITs and IISC and a select number of government and private colleges that have been regarded as the premier institute for the stream of engineering.”
The SD&TE minister said that technical students in Odisha will soon have the opportunity to get training on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop smart machines. He said a centre of excellence has been set up by Tech Mahindra and BPUT at the College of Engineering and Technology (CET) here where a 6 to 12-month course on AI will be provided to the students.
