FROM a time of capitation fee for admission in a technical college to lakhs of engineering seats remaining vacant each year in the country, India has come a long way. It is undoubtedly a success story per se — supplying trained manpower for an economy growing in a liberalised environment over the past two decades. However, certain imbalances in the mushrooming of these colleges and a drop in the demand from a slowing economy have given a jolt to technical education, with many institutes on the verge of closure. Himachal would not be able to fill more than 40 per cent of its engineering seats this year, while in Punjab 40 per cent seats remained vacant in the 2011-12 session. Andhra Pradesh has reported that 1.5 lakh of its 3.2 lakh seats will remain unfilled. Nationally, the vacancy figure for both engineering and management seats is around 20 per cent.
The All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), however, believes the number of vacant seats is not unexpected. That is the norm globally. In fact, it wants more colleges, as nearly 30 lakh students out of the 80 lakh who pass Class 12 each year do not join further education for various reasons. If India means to cash in on its famed human resource, it will have to invest heavily in education, especially technical. The only question that remains is quality, which is very poor in a vast majority of the institutes. They have good buildings, but not the required faculty or infrastructure. This is a failure of the AICTE too, whose job it is to ensure quality before giving approval to colleges.A country with limited resources, India cannot afford to have seats going vacant, which need to be reconciled with the demand, and not increased until quality is assured. While many students may want to study engineering, not all are able to pay the fees of private colleges. To overcome this, student loans have to become more readily available. If an institute is good, a student will be able to pay back the loan after getting a job
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