Nearly half of the seats in colleges affiliated to the IK Gujral Punjab Technical University (IKGPTU) in the current academic session are vacant. The university managed to fill only 35,166 of the total 68,801 seats after extended round of counselling and direct admissions last month.
Students choosing to go abroad for higher education, lack of jobs across the state as well as more seats granted to colleges in times of less demand are some of the reasons for the trend, say experts.
The university authorities, however, says the admissions have seen a jump of 4% this academic session as compared to last year when 33,879 of the total 72,836 seats were filled.
A total of 284 colleges, technical and non-technical, are affiliated to the PTU in the state. The courses run under the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) by the PTU include BTech, bachelor of architecture (BArch), MTech and MBA among others. The non-AICTE courses include BBA and BA.
Official data reveals that 47% seats of BTech and 65% of BTech (lateral entry in 2nd year) remained vacant this year. In the last academic year, around 52% seats remained vacant in BTech. Similarly, 51% seats remained vacant in non-AICTE courses in PTU this year. The figure was 56% last year.
The situation is different on the PTU campus in Jalandhar where all the 400 seats in AICTE and non-AICTE courses have been filled. The Jalandhar campus began offering these courses over the last three years. PTU vice-chancellor Ajay Kumar Sharma said students prefer the main campus due to good placement rate. Multinational companies readily pick students from the Jalandhar campus, he said.
{{/usCountry}}The situation is different on the PTU campus in Jalandhar where all the 400 seats in AICTE and non-AICTE courses have been filled. The Jalandhar campus began offering these courses over the last three years. PTU vice-chancellor Ajay Kumar Sharma said students prefer the main campus due to good placement rate. Multinational companies readily pick students from the Jalandhar campus, he said.
{{/usCountry}}A senior PTU official, who doesn’t want to be named, said seats were allocated to affiliated colleges a decade ago when there were fewer private universities and completion was less. “We are planning to review the quota of colleges where seats have not been filled over the past three or four years. We will ask colleges to surrender seats,” he said.
Another PTU official said students are not opting for PTU courses as many want to go abroad for higher education. Moreover, lack of job opportunities in the state is another reason for fewer admissions, he said, adding that the state government should regulate private universities to buck the trend.
The vice-chancellor, however, said the admissions have increased this academic session. “Admissions to the university’s prime course – BTech — have increased from 8,399 last year to 8,844 this year. The university also has more students in its bachelor of vocational education course. We are leading in non-AICTE courses as well,” said Sharma.
Former vice-chancellor Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Dilbagh Singh Hira expressed concern over lack of jobs or underpaid jobs for engineering graduates. This is why technical courses don’t find many takers, he said.
“In the past few decades, neither the Punjab government nor the AICTE bothered to check institutes offering technical courses. Authorities have compromised on the quality of education. Engineering colleges lack well-qualified teachers, which affects education and thus reputation of a college. We should limit engineering seats as per job availability,” Hira said.