India talks a lot about the Industry readiness of its engineering graduates. Most of the experts in the higher education would bring issues such as outdated curriculum, lack of research, in adequate infrastructure and many more as the reasons for the
unemployability of engineering students in India. A very few among them have noticed that, more than a curriculum or infrastructure, India faces a severe shortage of qualified faculty members. Unfortunately, being present for so many years now, faculty shortage has apparently become a permanent feature of Indian Universities.
Recently, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), one of the most sought-after government institute that admits students through Common Entrance Test (CET), reported to have lost 10 percent of its seats due to a shortage of teachers. This reduction will hurt the students looking to get admission to the undergrad engineering courses through CET during 2019-20. Country’s elite engineering colleges in the public sector are not an exception. As per the reports available in public platforms, India’s 23 IITs collectively have a faculty shortage of 34 percent as for March 2018. It is true that, with the exponential growth in the number of higher education institutions and the college-going population, the successive governments did not take adequate measures to fill the vacancies of faculty members.
Private sector on the other hand has been doing a decent job when it comes to bringing excellent faculty members to the classroom by offering attractive salaries and other facilities that are needed for quality teachers to stay at an institution. As a result, many private engineering colleges are now able to conduct cutting-edge research and adapt innovative teaching practices, which automatically translate to the production of employable engineering graduates. In this issue of Higher Education Digest, we have identified ‘50 Must Watch Engineering Colleges in India’ that are performing exceptionally well to create engineering graduates who can meet the challenges of tomorrow. We hope that the hard work we have done to feature the premier engineering institutions in India will help students and faculty members from all over the country in their journey.
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