Fewer engineering aspirants since 2014, govt alarmed

NEW DELHI: Till recently a dream career of the Indian middle class, engineering is losing its sheen as a study option if lesser candidates taking the admission test of late are any indication. The story, though, is beyond dip in numbers.

First, a sample: The candidates who took the joint entrance examination (JEE) went down by 27,000 this April from what it was last time, and by 56,000 in 2015 vis-à-vis the preceding year.

These statistics per se do not seem significant, as over a million students appear annually for the all-India JEE. But then, since 2008, this entrance examination consistently witnessed an addition of 20,000 to 30,000 candidates every year.

The declining trend since 2014, however minuscule, is a first in the history of JEE, which is being conducted in two parts—Main followed by Advanced—since 2012. Both stick to an objective pattern that is rated internationally as one of the most challenging.

The slide in the number of aspirants has alarmed the human resource development ministry, which has decided to address the issue. The ministry is set to discuss the matter at a meeting with the IIT council next month, officials said.

The idea is also to assess if the trend mirrored a decreasing interest in science, as is evident at the school level, they added.

Official data on enrolment in schools across the country show is a spurt in students opting for humanities and a decrease in demand for pure sciences in Class XI. According to unified district information system for education (U-DISE), there was a year-on-year rise of 21% in the number of students opting for Arts stream in 2013-14 and of 32% the subsequent year. In contrast, the year-on-year increase in those choosing pure sciences was 32% in 2013-14, but it dropped to 16% the following year, notes the U-DISE, which is a database of information about schools in India.

Academics sense a change in the attitude of the younger generation. Lata Vaidyanathan, former principal of Delhi’s Modern School, Barakhamba, said more students and parents were now willing to “experiment rather than take the traditional route”.

That explains the increase in those opting for Humanities that include Economics and Mathematics, she told HT. “Students who want to do an MBA later don’t want to waste an additional year doing engineering. They can do Economics honours or anything else,” she pointed out. “Students are more creative today. They have greater entrepreneur skills; it reflects in the choices they make.”

This could explain the recent dip in students’ interest in engineering. JEE (Main) is the qualifying exam for admissions to centrally-funded technical institutions such as NITs, IIITs and institutions in the participating states. Of those taking JEE (Main), top 1.5 to 2 lakh are short-listed for JEE (Advanced) for admissions in IITs. Till 2012, AIEEE and IIT-JEE were conducted as separate exams. The new system for admissions in engineering courses came in place in 2013.

Coaching institutes attributed the dip in engineering aspirants to skewed standards of engineering education in the country, which produces around 8 lakh students annually from 3,000-odd registered technical institutes. “Engineers are not getting good jobs as earlier. There has been a reduction in the number of students coming here,” said Naveen Maheshwari, director of Allen Institute in southeast Rajasthan’s Kota—a popular coaching destination for competitive exam preparations.