The Gujarat administration informed the State Legislative Assembly today, Thursday, February 29 that more than 44 per cent of seats in the state's engineering institutions, including self-financed institutes, would remain vacant in 2023, totalling over 62,000 seats.
As per the data presented in the House, more than 32 per cent, or 7,742 seats, of Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Computer Application (MCA) courses remained unfilled in the previous year.
State Higher and Technical Education Minister Rushikesh Patel responded to a series of questions from Congress MLAs during Question Hour on February 29 regarding the number of open seats in universities offering technical and professional programmes, according to PTI.
He stated that 1,40,852 engineering degree and diploma seats are available in Gujarat across various government-run, grant-in-aid, and self-financed colleges.
According to him, out of the 1,40,852 seats, 71,629 are for degree engineering programmes and 69,223 are for diploma programmes.
The minister reported to the House that of these degree and diploma courses, 78,540 seats (or 55.76 per cent) were filled last year, while 62,311 seats (or 44.23 per cent) remained unfilled.
According to Patel, there would be up to 23,501 vacant diploma engineering seats and 38,811 vacant degree engineering seats in 2023.
The minister listed several factors contributing to this predicament, including a lower number of registrations than available seats and students choosing to get admitted to prestigious engineering schools both domestically and outside, like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NIT).
As per Patel's written response, since finishing Class X is a requirement for admission to diploma colleges, seats are left empty when students choose to enrol in Class XlI or pursue alternative programmes like IIT or nursing.
Based on the information presented to the House, out of 23,791 MBA and MCA course seats overall, 32.54 per cent, or 7,742 seats, remained vacant last year, while 16,049 seats (67.45 per cent) were occupied.
A variety of educational institutions, both public and private, provide 7,481 MCA seats and 16,310 MBA seats. Of the 7,742 vacant seats, 4,675 seats were for MBA while 3,067 seats were for MCA.
