With focus on skill development and for improving situation in colleges, decision makers are looking towards the high number of vacant seats in technical courses. With a sizeable number of seats remain unoccupied, private engineering colleges are waiting for announcement of fresh directives by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to allow colleges to use infrastructure for skill development classes.
Recently, AICTE signed an MoU with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) to carry out studies on skill requirements and develop content.
According to sources, about 30 per cent to 35 per cent seats have been lying vacant in every state in technical courses for last couple of years.
In Madhya Pradesh, around 42,000 seats out of 1 lakh were left vacant in 2013-14 and around 51,000 of 99,000 engineering seats remained vacant in 2014-15. This highlights a nationwide slump in the demand for technical courses. Even, this year, around 45,000 seats were left vacant.
Earlier this year, engineering colleges in Madhya Pradesh had announced that 5,000 seats would be surrendered. After surrendering seats, the state is still left with 90,000 seats. Even after it, the problem continues. Colleges felt huge infrastructure must be allowed to use it for other educational purpose to fight issue of vacant seats.
