13,000 more engineering seats: Experts say show us jobs

The government plans to increase the seats in the existing colleges as well as set up 25 new engineering colleges that will help in the expansion plan. With this the total number of engineering seats will jump to 32,000 in the state. On Monday,the state Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roychowdhury announced this in the Assembly.

The decision,however,has not gone down well among the teaching fraternity. “The state government is making a mess of technical education. They should have started a few government colleges in place of the private one and should have stressed on post-graduate courses,” said a teacher of an engineering college.

With the economy not showing encouraging signs and the demand for engineers low,some faculty members questioned the timing of the decision.

A scrutiny of the placements situation across the colleges in the state shows that 50 per cent engineering students are struggling to get placements.

Doubts are being raised whether there would be enough takers for the 32,000 engineering seats in the state since last year,300 seats of the total 19,324 seats remained vacant.

“It is up to the students and their parents to decide whether to take up engineering or not. About 1.9 lakh students are appearing for the Joint Entrance Examination this year,” said Siddhartha Datta,Chairman of Joint Entrance Examination Board,the agency that conducts the examination in the state.

Insiders also point that the increase of the seats by the state government is an understanding with the private engineering colleges who were keen to increase the fees this year.

At present,the annual fee in a private engineering college is Rs 41,000. The private colleges are insistent on increasing the fees by a considerable margin. The ministry,however,has announced an increase in seats that would help the colleges admitting more students and thus would be able to keep the fees at the colleges within reach of many middle class students.