Three government engineering colleges started in haste by the Vasundhara Raje-led BJP government in three backward districts of Rajasthan earlier this year are shunned by both students and faculties.
The three colleges at Dholpur, Karauli and Baran have 300 seats each. But as per the education department figure, only 26 students took admission for the academic year 2017-18 in the five branches of engineering offered at the Baran college.
The figures are more pathetic in the two other colleges with the total number of admission is as low as seven.
It’s, however, not only the students who are giving these institutes a miss. There is no faculty in the three engineering colleges, which are run from the campuses of other institutes.
The Dholpur and Karauli colleges are functioning from the Bharatpur engineering college while the Baran college is run form the campus of government polytechnic.
State technical education minister Kiran Maheshwari admitted facing problem in attracting students and faculties. But he claimed that the poor enrolment is the reflection of “waning interest” of students towards engineering throughout the country.
She said the government has taken measure to improve the standard of the colleges and attract students.
“We have tried to bring in good faculties, introduce new courses, ensure infrastructure and upgrade our syllabus, aligning it to the needs of industry so students get employment,” she said, “We have also reduced the annual fee from Rs77,000 to Rs70,000.”
Others, however, claimed the adverse situation is because of the haste shown by the state government in starting these colleges without appointing faculty or building infrastructure.
In fact in April this year, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) had denied permission to the state to start these colleges without setting up proper infrastructure.
But the government was in a hurry to fulfil the announcement made in the 2014-15 state budget in view of the Dholpur by-election.
Minister Maheshwari again pursued the matter with the AICTE officials in June and obtained the nod.
“Since these colleges are located in remote parts of the state, students are not keen to join them. Hiring faculty too is posing problem because of the same reason,” he said.
But at the same time, he pointed out that all the government colleges in the state are facing similar problems.
The education department records show that Rajasthan Technical University that gives affiliation to these colleges has 159 teaching posts vacant.
The Bharatpur engineering college has 62 posts vacant, while Banswara has all 29 posts vacant. In Bhilwara the number is 39, in Jhalawar it is 29, 60 in Bikaner and 82 in Ajmer. The colleges are making do with guest faculties.
At an event in Jaipur, AICTE chairman Anil Dattatreya had cautioned that colleges which lack proper infrastructure and register less than 30% admissions for five consecutive years will be shut down.
He also advised engineering colleges and universities to revise and renew their syllabus, which was a major cause for declining admissions and quality of education.
This year the government engineering colleges in the state saw 58% admissions. As per education department data out of 5,860 seats only 2,483 seats have been filled.
Private engineering colleges too were no better. Of the 43446 seats available in 100 colleges, only 13864 were filled.
At least 10 private engineering colleges in the state earlier sought permission to shut down as they are not getting adequate students.
This comes at a time when the central government has launched initiatives such as Make in India to create more jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector.
[“source=hindustantimes”]
