Mera Beta Engineer Banega (Translation: My son will become an ENGINEER)

Back in the 1990’s getting a seat in Engineering was considered very prestigious, in those years there were around 10,000 engineering seats in Andhra Pradesh, many students at that time went to neighboring Karnataka or Tamil Nadu to study Engineering.

Today Andhra Pradesh is the state with the highest number of engineering colleges in the country. There are almost 350000 engineering seats available and the funny part is that not more than 230000 write the entrance exams (EMCET) for these seats thus making the entrance exam just a farce as anyone who wants to get a seat will get one irrespective of the marks they get in the exam.

Here is a table showing the increase of seats has been through the years

Year	Number	Number of seats	Vacant Seats
1995-1996	37	10155	0
1996-1997	37	10455	0
1997-1998	57	14155	0
1998-1999	89	19773	0
1999-2000	102	25064	0
2000-2001	107	30896	0
2001-2002	174	46090	0
2002-2003	217	62710	0
2003-2004	225	65960	0
2004-2005	238	82225	0
2005-2006	262	92600	0
2006-2007	282	98793	0
2007-2008	337	118993	0
2008-2009	530	174742	17577
2009-2010	656	226000	48795
2010-2011	705	252000	74972
2011-2012	721	350000	120000
2012-2013	728 (approx)	354000  (approx)	200000 (approx)

Source: Eenadu Telugu daily 

Thanks to the state government, more and more colleges opened up in the last 8 years and there is a huge increase in the number of seats available. Most of these colleges are run by politicians and influential businessmen. The actual reason for the sudden rise of these colleges is the “Andhra Pradesh Governments Fee Reimbursement Scheme” where any family with a income less than Rs.1,00,000/- per year  are eligible for complete fee waiver and fee was paid by the government. At one point Rs 5000 crores was being shelled out by the state to private engg colleges annually. In addition the belief that holding an “Engineering” degree is prestigious in the society, however we still have surplus seats and student numbers are not high enough to fill all the seats.

This growth has led to a dangerous situation here - students who do not have a liking or aptitude for engineering or sciences are/were studying engineering. The quality of education, faculty and infrastructure in most institutes is pathetic and substandard. The quality of the education has dropped drastically, thus making not more than 30% of the engineering students who pass out each year employable. 70% of the students (approx 200000 students who joined in 2009-10) who have spent 4 years of their lives studying for a degree that is not able to get them a job.

No doubt that overseas education is popular here in Andhra Pradesh especially for the post graduate sector. Many students opt for going abroad and improving their skills and yes they can be re-skilled and trained. This is the reason we find almost 90% of our students wanting to study abroad already having an Engineering degree. Majority of the others go many years (I have seen students who have spent 2 to 3 years) just searching for an appropriate job or joining some training organization to upgrade their skills.

Nishidhar Reddy

Managing Director

Atlas Consultants, Hyderabad

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and author alone.