In response to several technical education institutes for closure, the AICTE has decided to close down 50 more institutes recently.
There has been an over six-fold increase in the number of technical institutes across the country which have got approval of the All India Council for Technical Education to shut down since April. In its previous meeting, the AICTE had okayed the closure of 44 institutes, taking the total to 51 at present. This includes around 32 management institutes and the remaining are engineering and MCA institutes, said AICTE Chairman S S Mantha. In the first phase, seven institutes had received the Council’s nod for closure.
“We will have another meeting of the AICTE soon and the numbers are expected increase further. In all, 138 institutes had requested for closure,” said Mantha.
Over the past few years, several states have been struggling with massive vacancies at its engineering and management institutes. This year, AICTE had received applications for permission for closure from 138 institutes and the reason cited was low admission rates. Prominent among them were states such as Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Among the institutes that have been given the go-ahead in the second phase, five are in Maharashtra and a large chunk is from Andhra Pradesh.
Academicians said only institutes with a robust academic life, flexible curriculum in sync with the changing market needs, quality faculty and good industry interaction or collaboration, would be able to survive current market dynamics.
