Slowdown hits construction, IT, pharma courses

Not just economy, higher technical education is facing an unprecedented slowdown in once most sought-after courses in information technology (IT), construction and pharmacy. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 30, 2011, 24:13:03 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Not just economy, higher technical education is facing an unprecedented slowdown in once most sought-after courses in information technology (IT), construction and pharmacy.

Technical education regulator, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has received applications for closure of IT, construction and pharma courses whereas there is demand for opening new courses in conventional education streams such as mechanical and civil engineering.

Around one-fourth of 4,000 institutes in India running IT courses and one-third of 1,200 colleges running construction courses want these courses to the closed. Of about 1,430 pharmacy colleges, about 200 institutes have asked AICTE to shut down some unpopular courses.

"Many of these courses were started on basis of perception rather than scientific data linked with future job market," AICTE chairperson SS Mantha said. "There is no linkage between starting a college and demand in the job market. This has resulted in skewed growth in certain sectors of technical education."

The number of technical education institutes doubled since 2005-06 when India's economy showed an impressive growth rate of over 8% with their number being 12,814 in 2011. Institutes opened up in nook and corner of the country and AICTE gave approvals without even checking infrastructure and quality.

The maximum jump was witnessed in IT, management and engineering, which has most of six million students in technical education in India, but now its time for slowdown. In 2011, the number of seats vacant in IT courses was around 40 % and around 30 % in pharmacy.

Such has been the situation that five states - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Chhattisgarh - have asked the AICTE not to approve any new courses or institutes in their states. Maharashtra and Punjab wants no more engineering colleges.

"We are not able to recover even the faculty cost," was comment of a director of engineering course in Punjab, who has sought the AICTE approval to close down the institute.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.