Nagpur/Chandrapur : The trend of students turning their backs on professional courses continued last year as well with over 240 colleges, mostly engineering and management ones, applying for closure all over the county. This was stated by AICTE secretary AP Mittal while speaking on the sidelines of NBA orientation workshop jointly organized by Nagpur and Gondwana universities at LKM Institute of Management Studies and Research in Chandrapur.
Explaining the declining popularity of professional courses, he said after IT revolution, a lot of jobs were created in service industries like banking. “Even the multinationals were preferring IT graduates. Engineering is irreplaceable. The vacancies, I think, is a temporary phase and faculty would be back in demand soon,” he said.
He said even management sector faced same fate and its vacancies were more than other sectors. “The management colleges outnumbered all other among those that shut down 2016-17 session. But even this is the temporary phase,” he said.
On shortage of teachers plaguing the professional education, the AICTE secretary said graduates didn’t prefer teaching as they get hefty salaries in IT sector where they were in huge demand. “Technical education is suffering due to the shortage of qualified faculty and we are thinking of solutions to this,” he added.
Mittal also admitted that some colleges faced infrastructural issues and were not up to the AICTE’s requirements. “Professional education has become a business for the private sector. People wouldn’t invest in infrastructure if the outcome is not enough. But all institutes are not devoid of infrastructural facilities. Some have a really good infrastructure,” he said.
Mittal added AICTE was taking a serious view of the lack of infrastructure in colleges and was making sure the quality of education did not suffer. “We undertake random inspection and sample tests of institutes. Those found lacking are warned and asked to comply with the standards. If they fail, we cancel their affiliation,” he said.
He lauded Maharashtra government’s move to convert diploma colleges into degree ones. “It was done as per the AICTE policy. Professional colleges offering diploma can convert into degree colleges or vice-versa with minor modifications as per local requirements,” he said.
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