In Charts | The declining popularity of engineering courses

The number of technical and engineering colleges has declined 9.02 percent since 2017-18 (Representative image)

Engineering courses, which were once highly sought-after by students in India, seem to be losing their charm. The number of students enrolling in engineering and technology courses in the country has seen a steady decline in recent years, falling to 39.2 lakh in 2020-21 from 45.4 lakh in 2014-15, according to official data.

Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) published by the Ministry of Education was shared in Parliament by Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar in response to a question asked on the matter.

"The slight downward trend in enrolment from 2011-12 to 2020-21 may be due to the changes in preferences of students and the introduction of new courses having alternative job opportunities," he said, citing information from the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE).

Data from AISHE shows that Bachelor of Engineering (BE) and Bachelor of Technology (B Tech) are the only major programmes at the undergraduate level that have seen a decline in enrolment.

As the number of enrolments has declined, the number of colleges offering engineering courses has also come down, with several of them shutting down in recent years. The number of AICTE-approved technical and engineering colleges has declined 9.02 percent between 2017-18 and 2023-24.

Lack of employability

According to data from the India Skills Report 2022, almost half of India’s engineering undergraduates are not employable. The percentage of employable talent who completed BE or B Tech courses in 2022 stood at just 55 percent. Meanwhile, estimates by the World Economic Forum (WEF) show that only one in five engineering graduates from the country are employable.

Moreover, according to a statement made by former vice chairman of NITI Aayog, Rajiv Kumar, as many as 48 percent of India’s engineering graduates remain unemployed.

Dearth of suitable jobs

A report by Aspiring Minds (now called SHL) shows that for most engineering graduates in India, finding the right company or profile to apply to is the biggest challenge in gaining employment, followed by clearing interviews.

Although around 95 percent of students have taken some sort of training to improve their employability, most did it in college itself.

More alarmingly, as many as 59 percent of the students surveyed said that faculty members don’t talk to them about the industry applications of concepts covered in the curriculum.

The difficulty in finding the right jobs to apply for seems to extend to premier institutes such as the IITs as well. According to a study by the Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay, between 2014 and 2018, around 60 percent of graduates from the institute took up non-core jobs, which refers to jobs in fields other than their branch of study.

The majority of students from all branches, except Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering showed a stronger preference for non-core jobs.