This academic session proving to be the worst for the engineering colleges across the country, at least 100 colleges have opted for “progressive closure”. Things are grim for Uttarakhand too as it has seen nearly 75% closure of engineering colleges in the last decade. Most of the engineering colleges have been shut down or have toned down to Polytechnic or Science and Art colleges. Out of the 10 odd engineering colleges running across the district of Haridwar, only half of them are able to survive while the rest have either added Science and Arts streams or are on the verge of closure or merger. Such colleges fighting a grave fight to survive, the academicians opine that the only way to let them survive and thrive is to introduce the public-private partnership.
According to the data released by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body that regulates engineering and management education, six colleges offering engineering and management courses in Bengaluru did not admit students for the 2016-17 academic year followed by five colleges each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh aside from three in Rajasthan among other states.
Speaking to The Pioneer, a former director of Roorkee College of Engineering said, “It is pathetic that education has become business in most of the private colleges. Out of the 50% private engineering colleges in Roorkee which are surviving in today’s scenario, most of them are facing troubles in running the institutions decently.”
Elaborating further, he said that the best quality of students being taken up by the IITs and other government colleges, only the non-serious among them take admission in the private colleges. “The stakeholders consider the college as running business while considering the students as their customers who pay to get degrees. This is a pity,” he added.
Sounding concerned over the fast pace with which the engineering colleges are being closed down, ex-professor of IIT Roorkee, Devendra Swaroop Bhargava said, “Colleges are on the verge of closure since there are no engineering aspirants. The biggest problem in private colleges is that they do have money but not competent faculty. By way of contrast, the government institutions do not have funds for providing advanced equipments for the students.”
Stressing on the public- private enterprise model as the solution to the lingering problem, Bhargava said, “AICTE should recommend and regulate such kind of set -ups where infrastructural part is taken care of by the private owners while the government is involved in selection procedures of faculties who are having good academic record. This is the only way to give a stable set- up to the institution. In Rajasthan, Jaipur Mittal College of Engineering is one such example.”