Engg colleges likely to offer polytechnic courses in Andhra

Govt to ramp up polytechnic seats to one lakh from the present 20,000 seats.

Engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh may start offering polytechnic courses if the All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) clears such a proposal mooted by the state government.

While this move is expected to help college managements and the faculty in monetary terms, the government's intention is to utilise the existing infrastructure of over 330 engineering colleges to ramp up polytechnic seats to one lakh from the present 20,000 seats in the quickest possible time in a bid to expand skilled manpower base for manufacturing sector in the state.

"Initially, AICTE has expressed reservations about our proposal. But we are preparing a detailed plan to operationalise this proposal while keeping in mind all the possible concerns of the AICTE," Premchandra Reddy, commissioner, technical education, Andhra Pradesh government, told Business Standard. However he did not elaborate AICTE's reservations over the idea. Engineering colleges have to take AICTE's permission to start any new course

According to him, managements of some of the engineering colleges have informally expressed their willingness to start polytechnic courses at their campuses as desired by the government. Currently, engineering colleges in the state, most of them run by private managements, have a combined capacity of about 1.30 lakh seats.

Some of these colleges are finding it difficult to fill all the available seats due to lack of response from the students.

"While one engineering graduate is expected to supervise at least 4 diploma holders at his work place, we are now producing just one polytechnic diploma holder for every six engineering students in the state, which is not a desired situation. We also need more manpower with polytechnic qualifications to provide requisite manpower base to attract investments into manufacturing sector in the state," a senior government official said.

The proposal to increase the polytechnic seat capacity to one lakh was based on the fact that every year over one lakh students attend entrance examination for admission in to 140-odd polytechnic colleges.

The state government is also contemplating increasing the seat capacity of the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) to at least 2 lakh from the 60,000 seats being filled every year. The logic in enhancing ITI seats to this level is as follows: On an average about 3 lakh boys and girls between 7th and 10 standards in the state are becoming dropouts, left with no skill sets to find any employment. The government wants to bring most of these dropouts in to ITI fold so that they will be able to utilise the employment opportunities.

The government has already changed the minimum qualification for admission in ITI to class VII from the SSC level recently.

Authorities are trying to find a workable formula for industry participation in this endeavour so that the quality of training as well as courses will be relevant to the present needs of the industry.

But why is that the government takes initiative in this respect?

"Because the non-increase of ITI and polytechnic seat capacity in the state, unlike in the case of engineering seats, is a market failure. Government has to act, even support through certain incentives if necessary, to fill the gap where the market forces fail to take care of this requirement on their own," a government official said.

One reason for lesser number of ITI seats created in private sector is that those who want to join ITI training can not afford pay higher fee.

"The authorities have said that the demand for polytechnic courses in the state is growing. The idea of starting these courses would certainly helps put the existing infrastructure, including laboratory facilities of the engineering colleges to optimum utilisation. But we are yet to see the full details of how the government wants to go about with the proposal," Rajeshwar Reddy, secretary of the state private engineering college managements association, told Business Standard.