A problem of plenty

Updated on: Tuesday, December 22, 2009

There has been considerable deliberation on the need to increase the gross enrolment ratio in higher education institutes in the country, and planning commissions and various committees have emphasised on this at length. Yet, when it comes to professional colleges, engineering colleges in particular, one stumbles into an interesting anomaly in numbers.

Last admission season, in Karnataka — which was once regarded the professional education hub of the country, driven by numerous private institutions pioneering the private education model — academics spotted some worrying trends. In many colleges across the State, classrooms teaching engineering courses welcomed freshers far fewer in numbers than previous batches.

Out of the 13,683 seats in Karnataka's private colleges, 6,889 were vacant last year after the first round of admissions. Even after surrendering some of these seats to the Karnataka Examinations Authority, where these seats would be offered at a subsidised rate, most seats remained unclaimed. Among the subsidised government quota seats too there were about 4,000 vacancies, despite the government offering some seats at Rs. 15,000.

Even as the government is engaged is a tug-of-war about the nature of the entrance examination, and how to go about inking the annual agreement with the managements, this significant detail goes unnoticed. College managements, understandably, are worried, and new associations of colleges are being formed to represent the needs of tier-II colleges that are suffering heavy losses.

Widespread

The government, however, can only seek solace in the fact that this trend is not restricted to Karnataka alone and has been observed in several States. Tamil Nadu and Orissa, to name a few, have registered such trends. In Tamil Nadu, for instance, in 2009 about 25,000 seats were added; however a staggering 31,210 were vacant at the end of the admission season, four times more compared to the previous year.

So, what are the reasons for this ‘problem of plenty' that seems to plague the professional education system? Such issues were reported in dental colleges too, which is largely due to the fact that there are too many dental institutions in the State. Are there too many engineering colleges in the State today? If so, why is it that more than 20 colleges were freshly granted permission to set up shop last year? And how do these colleges, which are struggling to make ends meet as more than half the classes are empty, expect to attract more students next year? Further, it must be noted that many courses such as silk technology and ceramic technology had less than 10 students opting for them.

Futile exercise

The key problem that private managements face today is that of a reduced number of takers, concedes Panduranga Shetty, president of the Karnataka Unaided Private Engineering Colleges Association. And amidst the hulabaloo of seat-sharing and handing over the admission process to the Karnataka Examinations Authority, the State's agency for admissions, colleges are missing the point, he feels. “But what is the point of crying hoarse about how to admit students, if students are not opting for your college? Will the allotment method, modus operandi or agency change the fact that students are not opting for these colleges?” Mr. Shetty asks. Even if the government allots all the seats through its agency, this is a problem that is not about to go away. Mr. Shetty adds that a macro-level problem like this requires serious attention.

Even as this question is thrown up in academic circles, over a dozen applications for new colleges are pending with the All India Council for Technical Education. But what about the quality of education that is provided in these colleges, asks S.C. Sharma, Vice-Chancellor of Tumkur University? In a country like India, there is no such thing as “too many colleges.”

However, students are not fools and will not take poor quality teaching and inadequate infrastructure in exchange for high fees. He feels that the market might play a leveller and institutions that do not measure up to the competition may perish. But that will not solve any problems as students will continue to have issues finding quality colleges and good courses, and the overall educational system will continue to suffer.

“There are many colleges that have no infrastructure and do not have quality teachers. When colleges start, they invest in publicity and focus on mitigating their losses but there is no focus on the quality of the education provided there,” Mr. Sharma says. Why will a student come to a third-rate college with no placement prospects when a more-affordable and simpler university degree will give him a better job, he adds.

A problem of plenty

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