Higher Education -a Mockery of Government or People?

It is heartening or disheartening, as you feel, to note that atleast 3 out of 10 of 10.73 lakh seats in Engineering Colleges are lying vacant. A National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) study says Engineering services are a $40 billion opportunity for India by 2020, but only one in 4 of the 4,00,000 graduates passing out of the 3,200 Engineering Colleges every year is employable. Worse, only 3 out of 10 of the teaching faculty is competent and qualified. India Today reports that Nivedita Institute of Management and Technology in Murshidabad (U.P) has only four students on its roll. "Some Colleges exist only on paper to get Government Grants. We have started an enquiry against 127 colleges which did not submit their admission lists" (N. Prabhu Dev, Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University).

What are we aimimg at? To squarely squander our scarce resources in the name of higher education? Earlier bachelor degrees in arts and science disciplines were found in plenty without assuring employment for several decades. Dignity of labour suffered at the hands of these graduates and now it is the turn of engineers and other professionals to remain unemployed after spending precious time of their adulthood and hard-earned incomes of their parents.

There is no man-power planning - at any level or at any government organisation - of technical personnel needed for India's development, be it the requiremnt of the craftmen, diploma holders or engineers. The Planning Commission of India is not aware of such a need. State governments are not bothered about the quality or quantity requirements of different categories of work-force and technocrats over a period of time. The result is that there is a mushroom growth of technical and engineering colleges disproportionate to the actual requirements of the society and the industry. Shortage of specific categories is felt by the employers but the over-supply of unwanted number of engineers is a national waste.