Technical education regulator All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has extended the deadline for admission into engineering courses in a few states from November-end to December 31, suggesting the students may have to forgo their summer vacation completely.
Last week, the council issued a notification in this regard. This is for the third time this year that the council has extended the deadline of admission that usually gets over by August-end. Academicians disapproved the idea of no summer vacation arguing that they do contribute to efficiency and academic excellence.
Earlier states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Haryana had demanded extension because their state-level common entrance tests (CET) were delayed in view of the Covid-19 outbreak.
“The last date for admission to Engineering Courses is extended up to 31st December, 2020 in only those cases where counselling and admission had not started due to delayed CET of the state or where counselling has yet not been over with a rider that classes were not started for more than 15 days to take care of the academic requirements of the students to avoid academic loss,” said the notification.
AICTE member secretary Prof Rajive Kumar told this newspaper that the institutions can complete the academic transactions by adjusting the summer vacation.
“The admission gets over by August. This year, there will be a loss of four months for many students. The institutions can still compensate this loss by shortening the summer and winter vacations,” Kumar said.
Usually, the engineering institutions complete their first-year transactions by April. Then the students get more than two months of summer break. They also get a winter break from Christmas (December 25) to January 10.
Prof Sunil Sarangi, former director of NIT Rourkela, said that cancelling a vacation completely is not a good idea.
“Vacation is not a waste of time. It is required for students and employees to enhance their productivity and efficiency. So complete cancellation of leave would affect the quality of learning,” Sarangi said.
He said the state-level CETs are being held about a month after the national-level entrance tests like JEE Main and JEE Advanced. He said that states must reduce their waiting time and conduct the tests immediately after the national-level tests. The AICTE should also provide guidance to states on scheduling their tests, he added.
A teacher of an engineering college in Karnataka said in view of the economic recession, parents would not prefer to get their wards admitted into costly courses. Hence, the demand for engineering courses is low.
“Admission is an important activity for a private college. They will prefer to linger the process as much as possible to get their seats filled up,” he said.
Despite all efforts, only 50 per cent seats get filled in most of the private colleges. This year, the occupancy of seats may go below 40 per cent, he said.
