Engineering Colleges With Less Takers To Be Closed

New Delhi: With over 27 lakh seats lying vacant in various engineering colleges across the country, the AICTE on Friday said it has decided to close down those technical colleges which recorded less than 30 per cent admissions in the last five years.

Anil D Sahasrabuddhe, chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which is the regulator for technical education in the country, said such colleges will be closed down from next year. "In the past few years, the AICTE has been actively working on reducing the quantity of engineering institutions across the country due to poor demand and falling quality of education," he said at a two-day world education summit.

"We have also reduced the penalty for closing down an engineering institution that was a deterrent for many colleges which were willing to shut amid poor demand," he said. According to ACTED data, there are 10,361 engineering institutions in the country that are approved by the AICTE with a total intake capacity of over 37 lakh students. Out of this, 27 lakh seats are lying vacant.

"Apart from closing several colleges we are also focusing on life skills and solving real life problems. The number of jobs are diminishing in the country and to cover that up AICTE has formulated the National Student Startup Policy," the AICTE chairman said. Kiran Maheshwari, the minister of Rajasthan Technical and Higher Education, who inaugurated the summit said, "State-of- the-art language labs will be set up in about 220 government colleges in Rajasthan starting this academic session as in this era of globalisation knowledge of language is a necessity."