As the new academic year begins, 5,714 new seats shall be added in the professional degree and diploma courses. It was revealed by the officials at the Gujarat Technological University that the All India Council for Technical Education has approved an increase in the number of seats in 31 institutes in Gujarat and also approved three new institutes, but one engineering institute is still waiting for the final verdict.
Of the total increase in the seat requests, 5070 new seats have been kept for popularly preferred courses like Computer, IT, Civil engineering, Electrical, Mechanical, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Automation in degree engineering, while in diploma courses we have Computer, IT, ICT, Civil, EC, Mechanical (CAD/CAM), Robotics & Automation. As demand for new age courses is on a surge, the Gujarat government has also added new courses in its engineering colleges.
The number of increase in seats will be done by the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC) as follows :
-2070 seats in 12 degree engineering institutes
-3,000 seats in diploma courses
-134 in pharmacy
-210 in MBA
-60 in MCA
If the new engineering institute gets approved, 240 more seats will be added to the total increase of 5,714 seats. On one hand, new institutes are being approved . On the other, four progressive institute closures, including one engineering, MB, MCA and diploma are in the process. This means a decrease of 540 seats in these institutes after all existing students pass out. This means all the four colleges will not participate in the admission process this year. Officials also said that two MBA institutes with a total of 150 seats will be closed from this year after they get the approval from the AICTE.
The Students’ interest has been diminishing in degree engineering courses, and hence the closure of the institutes offering such professional courses has been a common sight in the past few years. Rupesh Vasani, director of SAL Institute of Technology said that students are more attracted towards computer engineering, IT engineering, AI engineering, while traditional or niche engineering colleges stay neglected. He also said that most of the increase in seats are for in-demand popular courses. Colleges are hence closing down unpopular courses, and increasing seats in popular courses, in order to get more students.
