The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has approved the proposals of 89 engineering colleges across the country after it lifted the moratorium on the creation of more technical education institutions this March. Further, for the first time, the council has also approved 80 other institutions, most of which are privately run, to launch undergraduate courses in VLSI (semi-conductors) design, logistics and advanced communication technology, which are the centre’s three major thrust areas, officials said on Wednesday.
This is the first such initiative of launching three new UG courses, the official said. Most of the courses fall under electronics engineering, with the institutions approved for offering these being ones which are interested in running courses in these thrust areas.
While the launch of two such courses was first announced by the government in February, it is now that colleges will be offering degree programmes in these core electronics disciplines.
“So far we just had a few colleges offering postgraduate programmes in VLSI design and communication technology including some of the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), but this is the first time when full-fledged undergraduate courses are being launched in these thrust areas to boost domestic chip design manufacturing by churning out professionals and creating a talent-pool in the discipline,” said Prof Rajive Kumar, member secretary, AICTE.
The government has already made its push for developing large-scale semi-conductor industries in the country, for which there is a need to develop human resources.
“With the help of ministry of electronics and IT and communications, we have prepared the syllabi for these courses. Also, we are preparing human resources for teaching these courses through faculty development programmes where we have professionals from the industry as well as those from IITs to train lecturers in this field. Initially, some institutions were apprehensive if they will be able to fill up seats, but now they are convinced that there will be huge demand,” said Kumar.
The council has partnered with two firms, which are the country’s biggest in terms of chip design, to help in developing faculty for the new courses.
The central government launched ‘Semicon India’ programme in 2021 with a vision to develop 85,000 semi-conductor professionals over the next 10 years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government’s three thrust areas have been — PM Gatishakti (logistics), semi-conductors (VLSI) and the development of advanced communication technology such as 5G.
New engineering colleges approved in 2023-24, several shut down
Meanwhile, under the 2023-24 approval process for opening of new institutions, the AICTE has granted approvals to 89 engineering colleges, of which 44 are self-financing private institutions, 27 are government-run colleges while the rest are state-run private universities, a few state-run colleges as well as deemed-to-be universities, which will be offering UG, PG and diploma courses.
“The trend of admissions shows that students opting for core areas such as civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical and electronics are picking up as observed from the data available for 2022-23, which is why it was decided to lift the moratorium. The colleges approved will be offering core disciplines with emerging technologies,” said a senior official.
In March this year, the AICTE released its approval process handbook for 2023-24 stating that the moratorium clauses have been relaxed and any interested non-profit society or trust or company can now establish institutions in the country in engineering and technology.
However, the council had put a caveat to the new applicants saying they will have to apply for at least three core engineering courses. The handbook stated that preference will be given to those colleges that will offer multi-disciplinary courses in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
In 2018, a committee set up by the council to propose reforms in engineering education in India recommended short-term and medium-term prospective plans for these colleges. Since a large number of seats, around 30%-40% were lying vacant in engineering colleges, most of which were privately run, it recommended that no new engineering colleges be allowed to open up from 2020 and the situation be reviewed every two years. The moratorium was lifted in March this year given the upward trend in admissions to core subjects.
Officials further stated that at least 70 applications were received for the closure of institutions (till the time all batches clear the final exams), most of which were technology institutes. “It is a progressive closure, which happens every year. This is mainly because it’s completely market and demand-driven, sometimes they don’t get enough students. Since technology is evolving so fast, it’s dynamic, so if the demand drops, if it gets redundant, they shut down eventually,” the official said.
Of the total 262 applications received by the council this year for establishing new institutions, 202 colleges/universities were approved of which 89 are engineering colleges, 100 are management colleges while the rest include architecture and planning; hotel management, design and applied arts and crafts, among others.