The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has sanctioned the recommendations of the committee chaired by BVR Mohan Reddy. This committee was established with the objective of providing Short and Medium Term Perspectives for Engineering Education.
Highlights of Committee Recommendations
Some of the key recommendations from the committee included enforcing a halt on the establishment of any new engineering institutes from 2020. Certain leniencies should be considered for those applications that are presently in process. The committee recommended that only requests from current engineering institutes to either initiate programmes in new technologies or shift their existing capacity in conventional engineering disciplines to rising technologies like artificial intelligence or robotics should be entertained.
Additionally, the committee suggested that new capacity in colleges should undergo an evaluation every two years. Current capacity usage in traditional disciplines is merely 40%, which is significantly lower than the 60% seat occupancy in branches such as computer science and engineering, aerospace engineering, and mechatronics.
Inclusion of Emerging Technologies
The Reddy-headed committee encouraged the AICTE to launch undergraduate engineering programmes in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics, quantum computing, data sciences, cybersecurity, 3D printing, and design.
Lack of Innovation in Education Institutions
In its findings, the committee pointed out that there was a gap in the innovation, incubation, and start-up ecosystem within educational institutions. It proposed that every education institution should be mandated to include entrepreneurship as a minor elective for undergraduates, establish tinkering labs like Atal Innovation Laboratories, and set up incubation centres, mentoring clubs, and accelerator programs.
| Recommendations | Purpose |
|---|---|
| No new engineering institutes from 2020 | To prevent over-saturation of engineering colleges |
| Evaluation of new capacity every two years | To ensure productive utilisation of resources |
| Inclusion of emerging technologies | To stay updated with current industry demands |
| Innovation, incubation, start-up ecosystem | To encourage entrepreneurship and practical learning |
Overhauling of Approval for Additional Seats
Regarding the approval of extra seats in existing institutions, the committee suggested that the AICTE should only provide approvals based on the capacity utilization of the concerned institute.
Context and Challenges Faced by India’s Engineering Education
India has faced the challenge of fulfilling the fast-growing demand for a skilled workforce from various crucial sectors of the economy over the last couple of decades. This requirement could only have been met by expanding the infrastructural base of the education sector – by increasing the number of specialized technical institutions.
Unsupervised growth of institutions, however, resulted in a surge of engineering colleges. The UR Rao committee noted this rise in 2003 and proposed a five-year ban on approving undergraduate technical institutions in states where the annual student intake exceeded the national average.
A study in 2017 by Aspiring Minds revealed that 95% of engineering graduates were unfit for employment in the software industry, which offers the majority of engineering jobs. In 2017, The Indian Express discovered that up to 51% of the total B.E/B.Tech seats in almost 3,200 engineering colleges in the academic year of 2016-17 went unfilled. The investigation noted significant gaps in regulation and found allegations of corruption, poor infrastructure, subpar labs and faculties, lack of industry ties, and an absence of technology ecosystems to nurture classroom learning.