AICTE to Shut Down Engineering Colleges with Less than 30% Admissions

The AICTE has announced that engineering and technical colleges that have failed to fill at least 30% seats over the past five years will be shut down. The announced was made on Friday, August 11, 2017.

The AICTE also informed that currently more than 27 lakh seats in engineering and technical colleges across India are vacant. Chairman of AICTE, Anil D Sahasrabuddhe, said that the Council has been working to reduce the engineering colleges across the country and improve the quality of education.

Speaking at the two-day world education summit, Sahasrabuddhe said that poor demand and falling quality of technical education are the major reasons behind the huge number of vacancies in engineering colleges across the country.

He also said that the penalty of closing down engineering institutions has also been reduced for various engineering colleges that were willing to shut down due to few takers and poor demand for courses.

Also Read: Govt: No Plans to Merge AICTE and UGC into a Single Regulator

There are a total of 10,361 engineering institutions in India that offer over 37 lakh seats every academic year. According to reports, only 10 lakh of these seats have been taken by engineering aspirants while the rest remain vacant.

Sahasrabuddhe also added that AICTE has started a National Student Startup Policy in order to resolve the issue of employability and reducing number of jobs for engineering graduates.

Also Read: SC to AICTE: Confirm the Salaries in Private Engineering Colleges

Kiran Maheshwari, Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Rajasthan, said that state-of-the-art language labs will be started in over 220 government colleges in Rajasthan. The minister further added that the step has been taken to enhance the knowledge of languages in the era of globalisation.