Shut mechanical or cut seats: Engg colleges

Shut mechanical or cut seats: Engg colleges

SruthySusan.Ullas@timesgroup.com

26.03.2021 

Bengaluru:

At least a dozen engineering colleges in the state have requested their umbrella varsity — Visvesvaraya Technological University — to reduce intake or close down their mechanical engineering branches for the upcoming academic year following plunging admissions. The number of such colleges is expected to rise as they have time till April 3 to submit applications.

Seeing the trend, VTU has issued an advisory to all colleges to reconsider their decision. Calling the move a “knee-jerk reaction”, the university said historical data suggests cyclic variations in admissions to basic branches in engineering during unprecedented events like a slowdown or pandemic.

Asking the colleges to be cautious and conduct due diligence before arriving at the decision, the advisory said: “Such impulsive reactions may manifest our poor resilience and jeopardise the reputation of engineering education in basic branches.”

VTU registrar AS Deshpande said: “We have thus far received 12 such requests. It’s only likely to increase as we have a few more days’ time. Moreover, colleges can also submit their requests to AICTE directly. Since we have seen a rising trend, we wanted to curb it at the beginning and issued the advisory.”

“A large number of colleges are trying to either reduce or shut down the mechanical engineering branch... Many of the colleges have been unscientific in their growth. When there was a boom, they increased the seats drastically. Now, they want to cut it down. This is likely to happen to many other branches too in the future,” said VTU vicechancellor Karisidappa.

The registrar added that some of these colleges have requested introduction of emerging/multi-disciplinary courses related to mechanical engineering that AICTE has recently listed.

50% of mechanical engg seats vacant

During Covid, industries shut down and there was a perception that employment opportunities will be hit. Mechanical engineering is an unfortunate victim of such a wrong public perception,” said K Mahesh Dutt, member of board of studies of mechanical engineering in VTU and professor at Dayananda Sagar Academy of Technology and Management.

“Though there were signs of admissions dipping in the stream, the numbers were shocking this year. We are rehauling the entire syllabus for mechanical engineering from 2022 batch. We will also incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence as suggested by industry experts,” he said.

Dutt said over 50% of the seats in the discipline are vacant this year. There are 12,000-13,000 mechanical engineering seats available in 170 colleges of the state. TOI had reported in January that nearly 89% of the 2,111 mechanical seats in Comed-K were lying vacant.