Rajasthan: ‘Locked’ engineering colleges seek govt nod to turn into schools

JAIPUR: Engineering colleges closed for years for want of students are now turning into schools. The continuous rise in school enrolments has come as ray of hope for the locked engineering colleges to make use of their expensive land and structures. Sources said that around 15 engineering colleges in the state have sought permission to run school in their locked premises. These colleges were closed for the last one to four years in want of students. Data says 40 engineering colleges have closed down in the last six years.
Explaining the reason for take such a move, an owner of a college who has applied to convert it into a school, says, “The technical education scenario looks very bleak and will take years to emerge from the slump. From the past three years, I am running the college in one third of my total capacity. This strength is not enough to generate even the salaries of the staff. Converting into school is the most apt option for my. It will not get the permission to start the school from the next session, I will go bankrupt,” said an owner requesting anonymity.

Deputy director elementary education, Vishnu Swamy told TOI that granting affiliation is a yearly exercise. “This year, we have many higher education institutes seeking affiliation for schools,” said Swamy. Some such institutes are group of educational institutes including Deepshika, Shine International, Maharishi Arvind, Bansal to name a few.

Sources said that an engineering college requires around Rs 8-20 crore investment depending upon the location of the land. It takes around 15 years running in the full capacity to recover the amount. The situation in engineering colleges is such that since recession in 2009, colleges have never able to fill 100% seats.

In the present academic session, the 129 engineering colleges have able to fill 12, 771 seats which is 32% of the total seats 39,127. While on the other hand, enrollment in schools has been increasing with every passing year. "These colleges have already excellent infrastructure in place including classrooms, halls, sports activities, labs, buses etc. They don’t have to put extra effort for successfully running a school," said RP Yadav, former vice chancellor of Rajasthan Technical University.