PANAJI
Lack of job opportunities and reservation quota saw total intake capacity of engineering seats in Goa being reduced by nearly 30 per cent in the past five years, with almost 20-25 per cent seats going vacant annually.
This year, as the final round of admissions ended on September 15, total 500 seats of the 1600 available, found no takers. This is despite the State government relaxing the crucial JEE criteria for admissions to the degree programme. During the final round of admissions held from September 13-15, only 15 students turned up.
“The need of the hour is to ensure employment for engineering graduates, which is still not happening. The government has come up with various skill-based training courses but there needs to be more focus on ensuring employment,” said a senior official.
According to the information, less than 50 per cent engineering graduates are being placed every year. “This definitely makes a big impact on the demand for engineering courses altogether,” an official said.
The core courses such as civil and mechanical engineering have witnessed a drastic drop in applications in the past few years due to the lack of job opportunities after graduation. However, the rising demand for IT and computer saw all the seats going full. “At present, the government has no plans to introduce any demand based courses,” an official said.
Ever since additional 25 per cent seats were added to engineering colleges in the State in 2019 to accommodate the quota for economically weaker sections (EWS), these seats have continued to lead to vacancies every year. In that very year, nearly 400 seats were left vacant, the number that remained intact in 2020 and 2021.
In 2022 and in 2023, 300 seats were left unoccupied.
“When the seats were added in 2019 to accommodate the EWS quota, Goa had about 1,200 engineering degree programme seats. Today the seats have gone up to about 1,600. If we go to analyse, as per our data, the demand has remained intact that is around 1100-1200 seats are getting filled every year. Only the additional seats are going vacant,” the official explained.
All seats in Goa Engineering College at Farmagudi continue to be filled but the additional seats at the four private colleges -- Padre Conceicao College of Engineering, Verna, Don Bosco College of Engineering, Fatorda, Rayeshwar Institute of Engineering and Information Technology (RIEIT) Shiroda and Agnel Institute of Technology and Design, Assagao, going vacant.
“This is all India trend. Most of the seats in private colleges go vacant. This is basically because of high fees,” the official said.
