Engineering, pharmacy and management colleges in Gujarat have lost their sheen with students, taking a cue from their seniors’ unemployability, shunning professional colleges, which are increasingly closing down in the State.

Nearly 40 non-technical and technical self-financed colleges have had to down their shutters in the last two years across Gujarat, mainly due to high fee structures, unemployment of those who have passed out, lack of adequate infrastructure and, therefore, lack of fresh entrants, official sources say. Many of the affected colleges were opened in rural or semi-urban areas.

During the last decade, self-financed degree colleges offering engineering, management and pharmacy education had mushroomed in the State. At least 36 such colleges, including over 20 technical ones, have closed shop since 2010, said Minister of State for Education Vasuben Trivedi. While all these were allowed to shut down, more have applied for permission to do so.

In academic year 2012-13, over 8,500 seats of 55,700 in 118 degree engineering colleges, including Government and private self-financed ones, remained vacant. Polytechnic colleges offering diplomas in engineering have also seen over 5,000 seats out of 58,000 remaining vacant, sources told Business Line here.

Similarly, of nearly 110 management colleges, 14 closed down last year and five more have sought permission to do so from the Gujarat Technical University (GTU) and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

But this trend is not confined to Gujarat or the smaller towns alone.

A recent survey by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industries (Assocham) has revealed that over 180 management colleges had closed down in 2012 in major cities such as Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Lucknow and Bangalore, while another 160 have struggled for survival. Only 10 per cent of the students passing out of these colleges were found employable.

In 2012, campus recruitment in these colleges had gone down by 40 per cent, said D. S. Rawat, Secretary-General, Assocham, adding the increase in number of colleges was not commensurate with the quality of education imparted.

Only 10 per cent of graduates from Indian business schools, excluding those from the top 20 schools, got a job straight after completing their course, compared with 54 per cent in 2008, Assocham said.

In the last five years, the number of B-schools in India had tripled to about 4,500, offering 3,60,000 MBA seats. The demand has begun to deflate now, as economic growth has hit its slowest in the last nine years and the quality of education provided by B-schools has come under the radar.

Similarly, nearly 95 colleges stopped offering the Master of Computer Application (MCA) course this year and only 25 started MCA courses, Rawat said.

According to the ‘MBA Talent Pool Report 2012’ prepared by testing and assessment company MeritTrac, which analysed a sample of 2,264 candidates, the total pass-through rate, which is the index of employability, hovers around 21 per cent. “While this bodes well compared to the 15-17 per cent employability for engineering graduates (indicated in numerous studies), there is still scope for improvement considering that organisations hire from this talent pool for strategic roles and this is the managerial pool that companies bank on,” the report added.

Stating that college scores could not alone be depended upon to ascertain employability, the company said “It may well be that a 5-point-someone ends up contributing more to an organisation than a 9-point-someone, simply because the former uses his (cognitive) ability to utilise knowledge in a job situation better than the latter.”

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