AICTE Is Changing, Country Is Changing: Vice-Chairman MP Poonia

India churns out around 3.7 million technical students every year and the critical issue lies with the employability of these graduates. The deterioration in the quality of engineering education have coincided with the increasing number of engineering colleges, putting the technical education at crossroads.

Dr MP Poonia, Vice Chairman, AICTE addresses the concerns of technical education and talks about the measures taken by AICTE in same regards.

He said, “The biggest challenge is the infrastructure. Almost 50 per cent of hard infrastructure is not utilised in the country”.

India has a capacity of 37 lakh students in the technical institutes and only 20 lakh students get admission. Out of the admitted students, 13 lakh graduate and only 7 lakh of them get jobs, Poonia informs. The gross enrolment of students in technical institutes in the country is 26%.

He said, “Schools and higher education institutions should impart soft skills like critical thinking, problem solving and decision making to create future leaders who will shine in any part of the world”.

“Students should also have right kind of attitude to grow and have success in life, they should be open to learning, be creative and think about societal problems”, he added.

He also asserts that ‘quality and quantity’ go hand in hand and yet another challenge today is employability of the engineering graduates. 

The vice chairman asks the private players to come forward and invest with the academic institutions to create an industry within the institute.

He also talks about the initiatives taken by AICTE, he said, “We have revised the academic curricula by eliminating all the unwanted content. We have also introduced 21 days induction programme in all the institute for the students to settle in the new environment”.

He added, “We need to bring down the strong boundaries that we have put on the students to help them grow in their desired field. And for this AICTE is changing, hence country is changing”.