Lowering of qualification levels in Eamcet, admission for below-par students and poor infrastructure has resulted in a large number of failures in the BE first year exam. The trend will result in a large number of unemployable engineers from the state.

Andhra Pradesh, which has the highest number of engineering colleges in the country, has the lowest percentage of passes.  Only 29 per cent of students passed the first year engineering course in the state.  This is a drastic fall from the 49 per cent who passed just three years ago.
It is the government's education policies that have created this situation. The case of Mr D.Yadagiri, who studies engineering at a city college, is fairly typical. From a poor rural family in Adilabad district, he studied in the village school and had never ventured even as far as the district headquarters town of Adilabad.

He had no ambitions of becoming an engineer or a doctor, but the government's fee reimbursement scheme and the reservation policy allowed him to gain admission in an engineering college in Hyderabad even though he failed to get qualifying marks in the Eamcet, the common entrance test for engineering students.

He failed the first year exams, but since there is no detention in the first year, he was promoted to the second year and is confident of making it to the third year as well as there is no detention in the second year either.

He is afraid about the third year as it is mandatory to get 50 per cent marks to be promoted to the fourth year. With a backlog of seven subjects already in the first year, he fears that the backlog will rise to 15 subjects in the second year. He sees no chance of completing his B.Tech.

There are many like him who joined engineering colleges not out of any liking for the subject, or proficiency in it, but because of the facilities extended by the government.  The pass percentage in the first year engineering course has been gradually declining, from 49 per cent in 2006, to 35 per cent in 2007 and just 29 per cent in 2008.

At the same time, the number of colleges has increased to 645 colleges with a total of 2.4 lakh seats.  To teach this huge number, a well qualified faculty is required. The rules stipulate that the principal must hold a Ph.D degree, but 110 colleges have principals who are not Ph.Ds.

Principals should have 10 years teaching or industry experience. About 153 colleges have principals who are without adequate experience. The student to faculty ratio should be 1:15 but it is 1:40 in many colleges. There are several factors contributing to low pass percentage.

Earlier, the qualifying marks in Eamcet were 40 per cent. This has been reduced to 25 per cent from the past two years to fill up large number of seats that remained vacant due to lack of qualified candidates.

"The reduction of qualifying marks has resulted in entry of poor quality students into engineering colleges," said Mr M.D.Christopher, secretary, Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE). "The number of working days has also come down drastically due to delay in admissions," he said.

The number of working days should be 180 in an academic year. With the delay in th mencement of classes, the number of working days came down by half.  Some academics attributed the increase in failures to the hike in management quota seats. "Earlier, the student would have to pass in first class in Intermediate to claim an engineering seat in management quota. Now it is reduced to 50 per cent,"  said Prof Nageshwar of Osmania University.

"Some colleges are admitting students with less than 50 per cent marks in Intermediate.
Seats in management quota were raised from 20 per cent to 30 per cent." "While 70 per cent of the students passed in third year, it was 80 per cent in fourth year.  However, these students joined in engineering courses when the norms were tough," said Prof D.N. Reddy, vice-chancellor, JNTU-Hyderabad.

 New colleges cause for failure

The indiscriminate sanctioning of new engineering colleges in the state by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), without considering faculty and infrastructure, has contribute to the falling pass percentage in the state.  Several big educational institutions are setting up new colleges every year in the existing campuses.  Some of these groups are operating a dozen engineering, MBA and MCA colleges in a single campus.

Though the Chief Minister Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy has himself intervened and appealed to the Union Human Resources Development ministry to direct AICTE not to grant new colleges, his appeal has fallen on deaf ears. AICTE has already approved 70 new colleges this year taking the total to 645 colleges.

Several college managements in the state are exploiting the rampant corruption in AICTE to their advantage and securing approvals for new colleges.  Recently, AICTE member secretary Mr Narayan Rao was caught red-handed by the CBI in New Delhi when he was accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the owner of an engineering college located in the state.

Eamcet officials say they are forced to include the new colleges in the counselling as the managements are approaching the courts armed with letters of approval from AICTE.There is also political pressure to include the new colleges in the counselling.  Matters have reached a stage where the officials are not announcing the counselling schedule till AICTE clears all the new colleges.

"We don't need new colleges. It's time to focus on improving the standards in existing colleges. The government should also take the initiative to start courses such as nano-technology, environmental engineering, material science etc in engineering colleges as we already have more than enough IT and computer science seats," said Prof D.N. Reddy, vice-chancellor, JNTU-Hyderabad.

At one time, Andhra Pradesh had the least number of engineering colleges among the southern states.

But with 645 colleges today, it has surpassed Tamil Nadu (240 colleges), Karnataka (167) and Maharashtra (207).