IIPM Admission

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

WEST BENGAL HIGHER EDUCATION: No takers for engineering seats

IIPM BBA MBA Institute: Student Notice Board

Those at the helm are clueless as to how to lure the students

Sitting in his Salt-lake office, the Chairman of the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board, Sidhartha Dutta, is not at all enjoying the situation. Not only him, actually the whole Board seems to be in a melancholic mood ' students are simply not applying to engineering colleges in this eastern state; 6,026 seats are currently vacant. A third round of counselling was slated between August 29-31 to fill up the vacant seats in the engineering colleges. That, too, is over now. The situation remains the same. West Bengal, unfortunately, leads the nation with respect to this ignominious figure of vacant engineering seats. The last year's slow down hang-over might have exacerbated the situation, but a solution is clearly not in sight. Terming it a nationwide phenomenon, Dutta is gives his reasoning: 'Nationally, about 45 lakh students appear for the school-leaving examinations every year. Of these, about 4.5 lakh are from the science stream which is about 10 per cent of the total. Out of these, about four lakh pass the examination. But there are five lakh engineering seats in the country.' In Dutta's view, it's a pure case of a demand and supply gap, with supply being much over the actual demand.

Talking to TSI, Dhritiman Chowdhury, a first year computer science student from Durgapur points out, 'Actually, there is almost a complete saturation in the IT and engineering fields. So today's youth are not at all willing to go for engineering. Their interest is rather growing towards basic science. Since the job prospects are dwindling, not many students are game for engineering these days.'

This is evidently a far cry from the days when engineering used to be a coveted course with parents ready to dole out lakhs to ensure their progenies join the stream. In the social context, this is a plus and a minus too. The plus: availability of vacant seats ensures that all those who're interested get the programme of their choice. The minus: if jobs are anyway not available, what use is doing a course at all? What is required is for the West Bengal Board to immediately undertake a comprehensive state-wide research report to find out the actual reasons such a situation has occurred; and if the reasoning is jobs, to advise the government appropriately. Not that the government would do anything ' but the least they should 'not' do is to close down or scrap the vacant seats and courses. It's better to have the problem of plenty than to suffer penurious illiteracy

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again...
Ragging rights and wrongs
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things
Best Colleges for Vocational Courses in India
After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May

No comments:

 

GoStats hit counter
GoStats hit counter