For the first time in five years, 42% of students have recorded engineering placements in 2017-18 hitting the highest rate.
Engineering is one of the most preferred choices of the Indian students when it comes to deciding on a suitable career path that they want to pursue. This is the major reason why India has so many engineering colleges and producing a multitude of engineers annually. The most disheartening thing, on the other hand, is an equally fluctuating graph of placements for these engineering students. Despite Colleges promising On-Campus placements, a lot of engineers still find themselves unemployed even though there is a visible increase in the number of placements as well.
So let’s look into this dwindling graph of employability for engineering students in India.
The Graph Growth of Campus Placements for Engineers
Campus placements are essential for every engineering student as it not only ensures them employability but also gives them the much required kickstart propel their careers forward. The decrease in the employability rate of engineers gives rise to a lot of tension for engineering students as to whether they’ll get a placement or not. As per the statistics obtained from the All India Council For Technical Education (AICTE), in 2016-17 38.39% of engineering students got campus placements whereas, in 2013-14, the figures were a mere 31.95% which is still more than the figures compared to 2012-13 which were just 28.7%. This time the figures have finally crossed the 40% mark by having 41.74% campus placements of engineering students.
While it’s sad that more than 58% of students are unemployed, this is by far the best proportion of students getting campus placement in India from their respective colleges. There is a pressing need to steer the curriculum such that it enhances the employability of engineering graduates. In the course of their graduation, they need to start working upon their resumes and one way to do this is by interning at reputed companies. Internships give students practical knowledge and experience which is often required by companies. Those students who have done internships land a job easily. An AICTE official said that more than 3.8 lakhs students were able to find themselves summer internships and even more students would be looking for internships in the future hence contributing the increase in the number of placements.
Since the academic session of 2015-16, the number of enrollments has been rapidly declining. In 2016-17, total intake capacity at undergraduate level was 15,71,220, out of which total enrolment was 7,87,127 only. In 2015-16, total intake was 16,47,155, of which enrolment was 8,60,357 only. The enrolment of students has decreased to 750,00 in 2017-18 from 944,000 in 2013-14. The number of engineering colleges in India under AICTE has also decreased from 3400 in 2014-15 to 3255. It has also been speculated that 400 more standard colleges have applied for closure to AICTE and AICTE itself wants to close 800 more colleges who are failing to meet the standard of education and infrastructure required by AICTE.
College Shutdowns: an Increasing Graph
This increase in the closure of engineering colleges is due to two major reasons. One of the reasons is the poor rate of enrolment due to which several states prompted AICTE to ban the creation of more engineering seats. The states which submitted a petition to the AICTE asking not to set any more technical institutes are :
- Haryana
- Madhya Pradesh
- Chhattisgarh
- Telangana
- Maharashtra
- Rajasthan
Second, is the poor infrastructure and the lack of these colleges meeting the demands and guidelines laid down by AICTE.
The number of enrolment for Postgraduate and Diploma programs in Institutes under AICTE has also witnessed a marginal depletion. This is due to less number of jobs and increasing opportunity in varied fields.
“First of all, there is not much difference statistically. There are always errors in such reporting and this could be within the margin of error.
Second, there is a reduction in the number of graduates, and hence the same number of jobs would result in a higher fraction of graduates getting a job.
Third, the average quality of graduates may have gone up slightly since it is the poor quality colleges that are shutting down and students today have better access to quality education through MOOCs and other online material.
So lots of factors adding a tiny bit each. The internships may have also added a tiny bit. I wouldn’t agree that internships are the major reason.”
said Dheeraj Sanghi, a professor at IIT Kanpur.
Let’s hope the number of placement increases this year as well. AICTE is working diligently towards achieving this by collaborating with LinkedIn and Monster.com for various projects.
What do you think about this? Will campus placements increase with time or not?
Let us know in the comments below.
Also Read: ENGINEERING : The Road Taken By Many Indians
