FIRST-YEAR engineering students, across major disciplines, struggle with mathematics more than any other core subject, according to a learning assessment survey carried out by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — a finding which underlines the crisis plaguing engineering education in the country.
The survey, undertaken to evaluate the quality of technical education and identify learning gaps affecting employment prospects of engineering graduates, found civil engineering students to be the “lowest performers” in “fundamental subjects”.
The findings of the survey, in which 1.29 lakh students from 2,003 AICTE-approved institutes participated between last September and June 7 this year, indicate that the struggle with maths, which sets in at the foundational learning level in primary classes, remains unaddressed in the school education system for a vast majority of students.
The survey was carried out through a specially designed online test named PARAKH. Besides an aptitude test for all levels, first-year students were tested on physics, chemistry, maths, while second, third and fourth-year students were assessed on competency in their area of specialisation. For third and fourth-year students, the overall scores also took into account their performance in emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT).
An analysis of the maths, physics and chemistry skill levels of 22,725 first-year students showed that “more emphasis is required for maths study in the engineering domain”, states the survey report. “Civil (engineering) is the lowest performing department across maths, physics and chemistry streams. More focus is required in the civil department in fundamental subjects,” it adds.
In maths, civil engineering students scored an average of 37.48%, electronics and communication engineering (ECE) students 38.9%, mechanical engineering students 39.48%, electrical engineering students 40.02%, and computer science engineering (CSE) students 40.12% (see box).
In physics, electrical engineering students were the best performers with an average score of 52.5%, followed by CSE students at 51%, mechanical engineering students at 50%, ECE students at 48.8%, and civil engineering students at 48.5%.
In chemistry, electrical engineering students emerged at the top with an average score of 53.1%, followed by CSE students at 53%, civil engineering students at 51.3%, mechanical engineering students at 50.7%, and ECE students at 50.4%.
The overall report card shows that second-year students were the best performers, while the performance of third and fourth-year students reflected a clear dip. For instance, in the case of civil engineering students, the average score, out of a total of 100, saw a drop from 53.9% in first year to 50.36% in fourth year; in the case of CSE students, it dropped from 54.78% in first year to 50.83% in fourth year.
The same trend was reflected in the aptitude test. In the civil engineering department, the aptitude test score dropped from 52.6% in first year to 47.3% in fourth year; in CSE, it fell from 54.4% to 50.6%.
The report points out that students gradually lose focus on aptitude-related topics such as general knowledge and logical reasoning that companies take into account while hiring.
The survey also found that among third and fourth-year engineering students, the emerging areas that are gaining traction are Internet of Things (IoT), AI, Data Science, Robotics and Cyber Security.
There also appears to be a direct correlation between the performance in Class XII board exams and in college. In the second-year cohort, students who scored above 85% in Class XII board exams obtained, on an average, 54.01% marks in PARAKH, as compared to 41.11% by those who had scored 40-55% in their board exams.
Employability of engineering graduates remains a major area of concern for the AICTE. According to available data with the regulator, 3.96 lakh of 5.8 lakh students who graduated in 2019-20 got campus placements.
Earlier, the AICTE acknowledged that the huge number of vacant seats in colleges was among the reasons behind the drop in quality of engineering education, affecting grades as well as job prospects of students. In December 2017, The Indian Express had published the findings of its three-month-long investigation,‘’Devalued Degree”, which looked into the fallout of over 51% of 15.5 lakh undergraduate seats in 3,291 engineering colleges being vacant in 2016-17.
With a steady stream of engineering colleges applying for closure since 2015-16, the total number of engineering students enroled at the undergraduate level in 2020-21 was 7.09 lakh, down from 9.66 lakh in 2012-13, in line with the reduction in approved intake owing to a moratorium on setting-up of new colleges. The intake capacity fell to 12.52 lakh in 2021-22, from a high of 17.05 lakh in 2014-15.
Going by the enrolment numbers against intake capacity, 45 per cent undergraduate seats in engineering colleges remained vacant in 2020-21 and 2019-20; 49 per cent in 2018-19; and 50 per cent in 2017-18.
The findings of the survey indicate that the struggle with maths, which sets in at the foundational learning level in primary classes, remains unaddressed in the school education system for a vast majority of students. (Representational) 
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