AICTE to stop setting up new engineering colleges from 2020
In an unprecedented move that could impact many engineering aspirants, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has decided not to permit registration of new engineering colleges from the academic year 2020-2021. The move comes after a government committee headed by IIT-Hyderabad chairman BVR Mohan Reddy advised the AICTE to stop the creation of new engineering colleges. Here are the details.
BVR Mohan Reddy is a business executive and engineering manager who has worked with Cyient, HCL, and Bosch, among others. He served as the NASSCOM chairman from 2014-15 and was also given the Padma Shri award in Trade and Industry in 2017.
The government committee had submitted a 41-page report with recommendations for the AICTE. The committee, in its report, observed that more than half of total engineering seats were remaining vacant every year, and had hence suggested that the opening of new engineering colleges be stopped. It also suggested that no additional seats should be approved in traditional engineering areas like mechanical, civil, electrical and electronics.
Further, the committee urged the AICTE to encourage existing engineering colleges to convert their current capacities in traditional disciplines to emerging technologies. It advocated introducing new undergraduate courses in emerging areas like artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics, quantum computing, data sciences, cybersecurity, 3D printing and design.
An investigation by the Indian Express had found that in 2016-17, there were no takers for 51% of the 15.5 lakh B.E/B.Tech seats in 3,291 engineering colleges. The report also found corruption and poor infrastructure which, it said, led to low employability of engineering graduates.
It has also been reported that from now on, the AICTE will only approve additional seats in existing engineering institutes based on the capacity utilization of the institute concerned. For those interested, all recommendations of the committee have been made public in the AICTE approval handbook for 2019-20, which effectively means that all recommendations have been accepted by the Council.
