Restructuring of engineering seats leads to jump in admission numbers

The reason being the initiative undertaken by the state to bring in seats from government engineering institutes that are in less demand to those colleges where such seats are the most sought after.

In the 2021-22 academic session, as a pilot project, a few branches of engineering that witnessed no takers for its seats even in government colleges, were restructured based on demand. In 2023-24, the restructuring was undertaken in a majority of other engineering courses.

The restructuring was implemented after analysing the trend of last 10 years, the state education department said. “A scientific analysis of data trends of last 10 years was taken into consideration, as in where and seats of which courses were going vacant or were in high demand. Also, factors like local demand and employability were taken into account,” Principal Secretary (Education) Mukesh Kumar told The Indian Express.

The restructuring has been implemented at nine of the 16 government engineering colleges. Gujarat has 138 engineering colleges – 16 government, three grant-in-aid and 119 self-financed.

For instance, at Shantilal Shah Engineering College in Bhavnagar, of the 38 seats on offer in Instrumentation and Control engineering course, only three were filled in 2021-22 and two in 2020-21. When these 38 seats were shifted to LD College of Engineering in Ahmedabad in 2023-24, adding to its existing 75 seats, 110 seats got filled – a jump of 97 per cent, which increased to 100 per cent in 2024-25 with all the 113 seats filled.

Of the 113 mechanical engineering seats at Government Engineering College in Dahod, only 15 were filled in 2021-22 with 86 per cent of the seats going vacant. Of these 113, when 30 seats were shifted to Vishwakarma Government Engineering College in Ahmedabad, 98.2 per cent seats got filled in 2022-23.

In the 2022-23 academic session, automobile and mechanical engineering seats were shifted from Modasa to Ahmedabad, mechanical engineering seats from Dahod to Ahmedabad as well as civil and electrical engineering seats from Morbi to Surat.

Similarly, in 2023-24, instrumentation and control engineering seats was shifted from Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad, electronics and communication engineering seats from Bharuch to Surat, mechanical engineering seats from Bhavnagar to Surat and civil engineering seats from Dahod to Ahmedabad.

Following the restructuring, faculty members, too, was shifted according to need. Based on the suggestions of a committee comprising faculty members, around 200 faculty members were moved within institutes, officials said.