With a 25 per cent increase in the number of seats in engineering colleges for the implementation of 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections (EWS), the number of vacant seats in colleges in the state is likely to go up.
Confirming that there will be such a hike, chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Anil D Sahasrabudhe said, “The increase of 25 per cent seats will be employed in all institutes — government and private. While some colleges already had around 50 per cent seats vacant, because of these additional seats to be availed by the low income group students, the vacancy level can go up, from say 50 per cent to 52 per cent. There is a possibility, I do not rule out that.”
Sahasrabudhe was in Ahmedabad as part of a panel, presided by Union Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) Prakash Javadekar, for a roundtable session on opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and research in India, ahead of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit.
“For a 10 per cent increase in reservation for those under Rs 8 lakh income quota, without affecting any existing students’ strength and the number of seats, we need to increase the number of seats approximately by 25 per cent. The balance seats after the application of current reservations —15 per cent Scheduled Caste (SC), 7.5 per cent Schedule Tribes (ST) and 27 per cent Other Backward Classes (OBC) — is around 50 per cent for general students, which has to be retained. For this, we have to create additional 10 per cent seats for the low income EWS students,” he said explaining the application of the 10 per cent reservation in educational institutes.
This increase in the number of seats would imply that the number of seats lying vacant in Self Financed Institutes (SFIs), where this number is the highest after it rose from 45.37 per cent in 2015-16 to 57.06 per cent in 2017-18, will witness a further increase.
In 2017-18, out of nearly 58,000 seats in SFIs offering degree engineering courses, 26,027 seats were filled while 31,682 remained vacant.
Similarly, in 2016-17, out of 58,443 total engineering seats in self financed colleges, 28,333 were filled and 30,110 seats (51.52 per cent) remained vacant.
Meanwhile, in government engineering colleges, the increase in number of vacant seats rose from 107 in 2015-16 to 455 in 2016-17 to 652 in 2017-18. The rise, from 1.19 to 7.27 per cent, is not substantial when compared to vacancies in private institutes.
There are a total of 8,970 seats in government engineering colleges.
Saying that the increase in vacant seats would not make much difference, Sahasrabuddhe said, “What is the difference with the increase when already today 50 per cent seats are not filled. There are colleges where SC, ST and OBC seats are not filled. There have been cases when the seats in various states remained vacant beause the number of science students clearing Class XII was less than the number of engineering seats available. So, you have to open more science colleges then these seats will be filled. This is expected in 2-4 years when science colleges will increase.”
Sahasrabuddhe was addressing mediapersons on the sidelines of an interaction with students working on start-ups under the Gujarat Technological University (GTU) Innovation Council (GIC).
He also confirmed that there was a meeting of the HRD Ministry where exhaustive deliberation was done for the implementation of 10 per cent EWS quota.
The AICTE chairman also presided over an AICTE meeting in Ahmedabad with the stakeholders for the recently released AICTE approval handbook for the western region which is generally conducted in Pune or Mumbai.
