With the private universities expanding their vistas in the State, officials of the Department of Collegiate Education are foreseeing a possible drop in the students seeking admissions into the degree courses in the educational institutions in the department’s fold from the next academic year. After witnessing a steady rise in the number of admissions for the last three years, the officials have now decided to observe the trend and chalk out plans accordingly.
“The student strength in Intermediate is more or less the same and the private universities are coming forward with a bouquet of courses at the graduation-level. We are predicting a plunge in the admissions in the government, aided, and unaided colleges from the next year,” Regional Joint Director of the Collegiate Education K. Gangeswara Rao said.
Under his purview that spreads over six districts from Srikakulam to Krishna, there are 68 government colleges, 69 aided colleges and another 640 higher educational institutions in the unaided (private) sector. At present, 90,376 students are pursuing graduation courses in the government and the aided institutions put together.
After the advent of the private engineering colleges in the early years of last decade, there had been a steady drop in admissions into the regular graduation courses, forcing many aided and unaided colleges to declare a closure and the others to reduce the sections drastically.
However, with the global economic recession making a dent to the software jobs and the banking sector coming forward with a good number vacancies and attractive salaries, the students started looking towards the conventional degree courses again in the recent past. Severe restrictions with regard to the government’s fee reimbursement for the engineering courses too has contributed to the trend, as students from the lower economic groups switching over their preference from engineering to the graduation courses.
“We rose to the occasion by increasing the number of sections, appointing contract lecturers and introducing market-oriented courses. Making computer education mandatory in all the colleges is one such move that is benefiting a good number of students these years,” says Mr. Rao.
Region specific courses such as B.Sc; with fisheries in East Godavari, horticulture in Srikakulam and animation in Krishna district too have evoked good response.
“We are equipped with infrastructure and facilities to improve the intake, besides making efforts on improving the pass percentage from the existing 69 to 74 this year,” he says.
