Engineering Colleges in India

ENGINEERING COLLEGES IN INDIA

A survey conducted by Cosmo shows that each year India gets 15 Lakh Engineering graduates out of which only 2.5 Lakh get a job. How did this come about? Let us discuss.

With the IT boom of the 1990s and 2000s in India, the craze for engineering grew very rapidly. After the liberalization of 1991, various multinational companies started setting up their offices in India. Hence, they required an army of engineers who could develop software for them. These companies saw a big advantage in setting up their offices in India. India had a large population of educated individuals who could communicate in English. An average foreign company could cut its labor cost by 70-80 % in India by hiring Indian engineers.

With this came the requirement for setting up ‘engineering colleges’. For example, till 1990, the only major institute present in the Bihar region (currently in Jharkhand) was the Birla Institute of Technology (BIT Mesra). But as of now, there are more than 48 institutes like NIT Jamshedpur, IIT Dhanbad, etc in this region. Similarly, the states of Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh had 32 and 12 engineering colleges in 1994 and 1996 respectively but as of now, they have 705 and 300 engineering colleges respectively. Most engineering colleges are owned by politicians and other professionals. T.R. Paarivendhar is an ex-MP from Tamil Nadu and is the owner of SRM Institute of Science And Technology. G Vishwanathan is also an ex-MP from Tamil Nadu and is the owner of VIT. It is quite easy for these people to receive permission to set up these colleges but they forget the most important part after setting up an educational institution called ‘Education’. The standard of education provided in such institutions does not meet the current requirement and most of these violate the regulations of AICTE – a national-level advisory and regulatory body whose sole purpose is to ensure that the quality of education provided in educational institutions is in line with the current requirement.

AICTE is one of the most infamous bodies for being corrupt. In 2009, AICTE’s member secretary was arrested for bribery. The chairman was also suspended for the same. Many AICTE officials are accused of approving certain educational institutions to function even when these institutions violate the guidelines of AICTE itself.

Certain private colleges use a method called the Management Quota System to legalize payments received from students trying to get admission into the college directly without appearing for the entrance exam. The price paid varies for each stream. Using the Management Quota, these institutions can make a lot of money but they don’t usually put this money into education. Instead, it all goes into the pocket of the owner.

While some students receive packages like 50 Lakhs,1 Cr, 2 Cr , and up to 5-6 Cr per annum, an average engineering graduate has to be satisfied with 1-2 Lakhs per annum.

Moreover, various reasons could lead to this. 90% of Indian engineering colleges have outdated curricula and this might be the only major reason why Indian engineering colleges can never compete with foreign colleges. According to AICTE, the student-to-faculty ratio in engineering colleges should be 15:1. But what is the average in India? 24:1. In Bihar it is  68:1 and in Jharkhand it is 81:1!  This leads to one-way communication between the teacher and the student,  basically, a lecture where the teacher facing the board is writing, explaining it, and going about with his/her day without any interaction with the students. Most faculty members in Indian engineering colleges are not even qualified as per the AICTE standards. If the teacher itself has no idea about coding how can we expect him/her to train the students as per the requirement level?

The ones who get jobs after graduating from such engineering colleges teach themselves what engineering is, they aren’t taught. When it comes to getting jobs in reputed companies, they always seek such individuals who don't need to be taught much about the industry. But the reality is that most of them have no idea about how the industry works. Because of this many companies have begun 6 months of training camps for freshers because they don’t know much about the industry. But such camps aren’t possible with small start-ups.  A survey conducted by Neeti Nigam shows that only about 40% of engineering graduates do internships and only 36% of these graduates do projects outside their courses. Colleges like Bits Pilani allow their students to take a year off to work for their start-up. Such practices should also be encouraged by the government so that colleges don’t teach their children what a floppy disc or a keyboard is.