Engineering colleges plan to pare down courses which are least in demand Diploma and vocational certificate courses will be made available from next academic year The move will not affect those students pursuing the course at present
With the number of students getting admitted to government and private engineering colleges recording a steady decline, it is clearly evident that the degree has lost its attraction as a top career option. But, self-financing colleges have discovered a new way to turn the crisis into an opportunity - diploma courses.
Managements of private engineering colleges in Kerala got clearance from All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to use their existing infrastructure to run short-term vocational and diploma certificate courses along with existing BTech and MTech courses.
Majority engineering colleges in Kerala have an average area of 15 to 30-acre surplus land as the campus. The colleges are mulling to make use of this land to run diploma and vocational courses. "We find difficulty filling engineering seats for past few years. This forces us to look for new methods to lure students. We are planning to pare down courses which are least in demand and will launch diploma courses instead," Jory Mathai, president of Kerala Self-financing Engineering College Managements said.
"AICTE has approved our requests. Electronics engineering tops the list of courses which have lost the sheen. Earlier, most colleges had two batches for the course. As the number of takers has decreased, we want AICTE's approval to curtail the number of seats and batches. We plan to reduce the number of seats by 30," he said.
Mathai also assured that reducing the number of seats of cutting down batches will not affect those students pursuing the course at present. Management's plan to introduce new courses by next academic year.
"We find that traditional degree courses have made a comeback and are the most preferred choice of students now. However, we don't have any plans to venture into arts and science courses, Mathai said.
Demand for engineering courses is losing attraction at the national level as well. AICTE is worried about the trend which is showing a steady decline by at least 100, 000 seats remaining vacant every year. More than half the seats remain vacant. The change in trend is attributed near-stagnated job market for engineers and availability of abundant job opportunities for students from the non-engineering background. AICTE has also found that majority students are opting for non-technical courses offered by private universities.
