Takers in ITI courses increases and dips in engineering. (Express Photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi 050815)
At a time when engineering colleges in the state are not finding many takers, colleges offering vocational courses or Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) have emerged as the winners.
Over 1.36 lakh seats are available at ITIs this year — at least 3,000 new seats have been added this year. In stark contrast, no new seats were added to engineering colleges this year and the intake is likely to fall by 10,000 seats, according to sources. Sources in the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training, which has kicked off the admission process for this year, said that some of the courses offered by the ITIs are sought after because of their employability.
Incidentally, there are more seats in government ITIs than in private ones — twice as many. In the state, there are 417 government ITIs and 477 private ones.
In 2017, over twice the number of applications were received against the number of seats available — 3.23 lakh applications against 1.33 lakh seats. Applications have also increased over the past few years. In 2016, 2.83 lakh candidates had applied for 1.25 lakh seats, indicating a rise in demand.
The DVET, too, has tied up with several manufacturing giants in the past year as a means to get students employed in these companies. “This has worked in the students’ favour and people are seeing that there is an employment option by the time they pass out,” said a DVET official.