New Delhi: The Government plans to introduce
vocational engineering in higher secondary and under graduate courses by next year, Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal told Rajya Sabha Friday.
Industry-prepared syllabus will be introduced in the
school system and polytechnics so that students easily find
jobs and their employability improves, he said during Question
Hour.
As per the scheme, there will be Higher Secondary (10+2)
Academic or Regular and 10+2 Vocational. Also there would be
BSc Vocational Engineering, he said, adding that the attempt
is to introduce the course "this year and certainly by next
year."
"We are trying to integrate vocational training into education system... we are actually creating syllabus from school," he said.
Sibal said the quality of engineers produced will be
reduced with increase in quantity of institutions. Citing
example of Karnataka, he said only 37 per cent of graduate
engineers could find employment in 2007 because of presence of
large number of engineering institutes.
"Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu may have the same results,"
he said and noted that mushrooming of engineering colleges was
a result of NOCs the state governments give for setting up the
institutes.
As a result, seats cannot be filled and there is pressure
on AICTE to further lower the cut-off for admission into
engineering courses to 35 per cent from current 45 per cent
for general category.
"We are getting further pressure to further reduce the
minimum qualifying marks (for admission into under-graduate engineering courses) from 45 per cent to 35 per cent," he said.
