Engineering no longer a 'coveted' stream as enrollment drops

An analysis of the last six years of higher education data, circa 2010, shows how engineering as a career choice has been losing its charm.

The percentage of students opting for engineering has gone down. In 2010-11, 18 per cent of students pursuing higher education opted for engineering. The percentage of students choosing this field has been dipping constantly, hitting 15 per cent in 2015-16. The country-wide data provided by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development shows how commerce and humanities are taking over engineering as a career choice. However, despite the dwindling figures, it continues to be one of the top five choices.

Experts claim that the main reason the stream lost its charm was an excess of engineering colleges coming up. The institutes affiliated to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have gone up from 1,511 in 2006-07 to more than 3,288 in 2015-16. The IITs, too, have increased from just seven in 2005 to 23 today.

According to government data, over 27 lakh seats across various engineering institutions were vacant in the last three years. The government has taken this seriously and plans to shut down institutes that have recorded less than 30 per cent admissions in the past five years. "In the past few years, the AICTE has been actively working on reducing the number of engineering institutes across the country due to poor demand and falling quality of education," said Dr Anil Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman, AICTE.

This trend could also be attributed to shrinking job offers and layoffs in jobs for engineers. With the change in industry demands, the choice of stream has also changed over the last six years. While in 2010 most students opted for electronics and computer engineering, in 2015-16, mechanical was the top choice. Experts cite increasing automation in the industry as the reason behind this.

"Engineering was never a lucrative career option. Even 10 years ago, B Tech were doing calling jobs in MNCs. I think people are gradually realising that they don't need to spend so much money on a bad quality college just for these kind of jobs. The number engineers will go down further in future,"said Professor Dheeraj Sanghi, Member, Academic Senate, IIIT Delhi.