Above is the question that is bound to emerge in everyone’s mind after reading the news today. AICTE or The All India Council for Technical Education has lowered the eligibility criteria for engineering college admissions from 50% in Class 12 (in physics, chemistry and math or PCM group) to 45% for general category candidates and 40% for reserved category candidates.
Students who are eligibile can apply between July 6 and July 8. About 10,000 engineering aspirants who satisfy the new criteria have applied. Although the provisional merit list for engineering is up on the website, students eligible under the new rule will be accommodated on the final merit list.
The reason behind this move is said to be a response to a huge demand. Kapil Sibal (Union Minister for Human Resource Development) said, “We have to ultimately relax the norms because the demand is huge. It all depends on the market. For instance, this year, people have moved to mechanical engineering courses. Seats in colleges are vacant due to poor standards. We have to address the demand issue.”
I am sure most of you will agree that, Engineering is a coveted profession in India, but at the same time we must not forget that it’s a much respected career. An engineer is ultimately held responsible for the technological advancements in a country. If the process of getting inside an engineering degree course is made so easy, students may not feel the importance for this career.
It has come down to the rift between ‘quantity’ of engineers and ‘quality’ of engineers. Seeing the current state, one feels that India could use some technical torch-bearers to surpass new frontiers of engineering. Do we need thousands of average-rated engineers churning out of the factory-like colleges or a few really talented and worthy engineers would suffice?