Raising the bar, and lowering it

Amidst much fanfare, the All India Council for Technical Education unveiled a set of reforms for the technical education sector earlier this year. Among them was a vital move that sought to address the quality concerns in technical education.

Touted as a move to regulate the quality of students entering engineering colleges, the AICTE increased the minimum marks to be obtained in the qualifying examination (Pre-University Course and equivalent) for entry to engineering courses from 45 to 50 per cent (40 to 45 for students applying under the SC/ST criteria).

However, this move was heavily opposed by private college managements, particularly in States where engineering education faces a problem of plenty. In Karnataka, for instance, after the 2010 engineering admission rounds at least 15,000 seats remained unfilled.

Similar trend

This was in keeping with trends in previous years; in 2008 and 2009, around 8,000 and 11,000 seats had no takers. Given this situation, private college managements were against the move right from the start.

Their predictions came true when the CET results were announced and the number of ranks fell from 74,960 to around 64,300. This meant that more colleges would find it difficult to fill in seats.

Following this, the State government — pressured by private management lobbies to find a ‘quick fix' solution to their woes — went to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the AICTE seeking a rollback of the notification. The AICTE gave in. Around 7,000 more students were declared eligible since and given spot ranks.

Though it is not clear whether it is a pan-India move, for there is no notification on the matter yet, academics are questioning the move. Brought in with the original motive to increase the quality of engineers, by setting a higher benchmark for students to aspire to, it was indeed one that academics welcomed. Then why did the AICTE go back on this?

Though we are yet to hear from the AICTE (repeated attempts to contact it came to naught), academics believe that one logical reason could be that the announcement had been made too late in the day.

Rajnikanth, former principal of M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology and member of the Visvesvaraya Technological University's Board of Studies, believes that though the move was well-intentioned, increasing the gross enrolment ratio and pushing for inclusiveness is also important.

Good move

However, he feels that increasing the cut-off is a good move.

“The problem here was probably that it was a last-minute move. If students are informed about this two years in advance, and they are given sufficient time to make peace with a new cut-off that they must work towards, then I do not think 50 per cent is too much to ask of students who aspire to be engineers.”

Dr. Rajnikanth talks about an evaluation or survey that the VTU had conducted two years ago, where attempts were made to evaluate the number of dropouts, the number of students failing to clear the first year of engineering and their profiles. “We did find a correlation between their academic credentials in 12th Standard and their performance later. And the quality of engineering graduates has certainly been a matter of concern.”

R. Prasad, a professor in a Bangalore-based engineering college, agreed that quality was a concern. However, he disagreed with the view that increasing the cut-offs will necessarily remedy this. In fact, the issue with quality begins at the school level. “The quality of high school education is so low that by the time students come to Pre-University Colleges they are already doing badly and are weak on basics,” he said.

This must also be seen in the context of the poor quality of teaching in Pre-University Colleges, he believes. “I have seen students from rural colleges who have studied in English medium but are not able to follow a single lesson in engineering college. But the solution is not to say that these students must not enter college, but to improve the teaching that puts them at such a disadvantage.” He adds that colleges also have a responsibility to arrange ‘bridge classes' to cater to the specific needs of students.

More colleges

Engineering education in the State appears to be trapped in a vicious circle of cause and effect. While the government is forced to run to the AICTE so that colleges do not suffer low intake, it has also allowed the opening of six new engineering colleges. Academics point out that until the random sanctioning of engineering colleges is curbed, the problem of plenty is unlikely to be solved.