Overflowing Engineering Colleges In India: Mere Engineering Of Colleges

By Hariharan Ramakrishnan:

It is very obvious to everyone “ what should one do after 12th standard?” and most often, engineering is the answer in unison. The country has been crowded with institutions of engineering already. Every parent chooses the most booming stream currently for their children. How can one choose when only one option is given? I bet, you can call any ten students from the final year of any engineering college and ask them “what is engineering?” Out of ten, 7 are not going to answer and remaining 3 will give the best wrong answer. Engineering just means a four year task cut out for completion of assignments and scoring in internal and external exams to pass. Most colleges teach just only aptitude for placement and not engineering. There are really no soft skills imbibed in the students other than those needed just to show up in the campus interview.

It is a sorry situation to see unqualified staff who made his own bachelor degree a comedy, igniting the minds of students to build a superpower nation by 2020. Engineering is no more a study with the aim of developing industrialisation and rendering utilities to the society. It is a mere card necessary to obtain a job for earning a livable salary for survival. It was a shocking earlier report to see a report produced by NASSCOM that only 15% of the engineering graduates in India are employable, but even this is casual mow. Still there are students in lakhs, every year who are doing the same “beat around the bush” work in the so called engineering colleges. According to AICTE’s report, 4.6 lakh engineers graduated in 2004-05 and 5.2lakh in 2005-06. In the past 5 years, the number of engineers have increased to threefold as the number of colleges.

“An alarming fact is that there are over 3393 engineering colleges in India with a capacity of 14.85 lakh seats.”

I wonder where this situation will lead to? The above statement shows that in lieu of producing quality engineers, engineering colleges are produced. It is no more a college of engineering, it is engineering of colleges. What this shows is that, it is no more an education but a “business”. Private engineering colleges aim only to mint money and not to preach engineering. Students pay double the money than the prescribed fees and they have nowhere to go except to follow the path laid by their jobless frontiers. In most of the newly established engineering colleges, labs are commissioned only after the students finish the course.

The conclusion is that these institutions will lead individuals and the country nowhere. Few exceptions like IITs and NITs are forbidden for many aspiring students in the rat race. The solution would be to provide a check on the pseudo engineering colleges which would otherwise ruin the lives of many youngsters in the name of professionalism. Approval should be granted to colleges only after implementation of necessary infrastructure, qualified staff and well established laboratories. An otherwise effective solution is for the youngsters to break the chain and follow their dreams, so that dawn really comes.

Precaution/ FREE ADVICE

Vishwanathan Anand has claimed the World Chess Championship for the 5th time, consequently there is a viral spread of chess coaching centers in the country. Beware! Don’t heed your ears to your parents, follow what your heart says. Don’t end up in a pseudo Chess center.