AICTE Reduces 1.5 Lakh Engineering and Management Seats, Adds 1.4 Lakh New Ones

AICTE has decided to reduce 1.5 lakh seats in engineering, management and other technical degree courses in old institutes whereas 1.4 lakh additional seats will be added by some of the new institutes.

The number of seats for 2020-21 has witnessed a drop due to the closure of some institutes, strict action by AICTE or failure on the part of some institutes to get renewals. Roughly 1.4 lakh new seats for the same courses have been added for the new institutes so the overall decline in the number of seats in the institutes offering technical education is 10,000.

The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) shared the seat approval data on July 27, 2020, for this year which showed that a total of 30,88,512 seats have been allowed in 9,691 institutes for 2020-21. In addition to management and engineering, some of the other streams which AICTE governs include applied arts and crafts, town planning, hotel management and catering technology,

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Overall, the number of seats approved by the AICTE has reduced by over 2.5 lakh, as compared to 2019 and the reason behind this is that many pharmacy and architecture colleges are now not mandatorily affiliated with it according to a recent Supreme Court order. About 179 institutes which had 34, 553 seats have closed this year, while 44 institutes with 8,832 seats have been dropped due to strict action by the AICTE.

The highest reduction in the seats i.e- 69, 965 in 765 institutes is on account of the course being scrapped or the course division being scrapped due to the low intake of students for consecutive years in a row. Also, 134 institutes with 40,578 seats did not apply for renewal this year. 164 new institutes with about 39,566 seats have been approved for beginning admissions this year and 1,311 existing institutes have raised their student intake by 1,02,397 in the ongoing courses.

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AICTE said that the approval process for 2020-2021 was has seen a lot of change as compared to the previous years. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown and its extension, the approval process saw a delay. Few AICTE approved colleges did not seek approval this year as they have seats lying vacant since the past 5 years which made it difficult for the institute to continue. According to the AICTE guidelines, there has been a 50% reduction in seats in colleges where the enrollment has been less than 30 per cent of the approved seat intake over the past 5 years.

AICTE has been paying a lot of attention to the quality of education which is being offered at the various technical institutes in India since 2016.