The Necessary Pruning
Over the past few years, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has been approving the “progressive closure” of dozens of technical institutions annually. For the 2025-26 academic session, 58 colleges were greenlit for this process, which
prevents them from admitting new students while allowing existing batches to graduate. This trend is a direct response to a long-simmering crisis of quality and viability. For years, many private engineering colleges, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, have struggled with alarmingly low admission rates. Some institutions failed to fill even half their available seats, making them financially unsustainable. The primary reasons cited by the AICTE for these closures are a potent mix: consistently low student intake, a shortage of qualified faculty, and a failure to maintain the required infrastructure and quality standards. Rather than allowing these underperforming colleges to continue offering a subpar education, the regulator has opted to phase them out, effectively pruning the overgrown branches of the technical education system.
A Shift in Student Ambition
The emptying classrooms in certain colleges are not because students have lost interest in engineering altogether. Instead, they are voting with their feet in a decisive shift of preference. The once-coveted seats in core engineering branches like mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering are seeing a decline in interest. In their place, an explosive demand has emerged for courses in computer science and its allied, future-focused specialisations. Fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Science, and Cybersecurity are now the top draws for aspiring engineers. In fact, the surge in these areas is so significant that overall engineering enrolments reached an eight-year high in 2024-25, bringing seat vacancy rates to a historic low. This demonstrates that student demand hasn't vanished; it has simply migrated, chasing the promise of modern, high-growth career paths and rendering older, less-updated courses obsolete.
The Industry's New Hiring Mantra
This student-led shift is a direct reflection of a fundamental change in the job market. Indian industry, particularly the dominant IT sector, has a new hiring playbook. The era of mass recruitment of thousands of freshers for generalist roles is fading. Companies now prioritise hiring fewer, but more highly skilled, specialists who can contribute from day one. This has exposed a significant 'skill gap' in Indian engineering education. Multiple reports highlight a stark reality: while a majority of graduates may have theoretical knowledge, a much smaller percentage possess the practical, application-oriented skills that employers need. Many graduates can explain a concept but cannot write clean, functional code or solve real-world problems. This mismatch between curriculum and industry needs has led to high rates of graduate unemployment, with some estimates suggesting that a large fraction of engineers are not considered job-ready for core technical roles upon graduation. This employability crisis is a key factor pushing students away from colleges with poor placement records and outdated teaching methods.
A Regulatory Balancing Act
Faced with this complex scenario, the AICTE is performing a delicate balancing act. On one hand, it is enforcing stricter quality control by shutting down non-compliant and unviable institutions. On the other hand, it is actively trying to help healthier institutions adapt. The council has created provisions for struggling colleges to merge with better-performing ones, allowing them to pool resources and consolidate operations. This policy is seen as a lifeline for institutions that have the potential to improve but are hampered by low admissions. Simultaneously, the AICTE is pushing the curriculum forward. It has encouraged and streamlined the approval process for new courses in emerging, multi-disciplinary areas. By allowing colleges to pivot—for instance, by closing down an old course to start a new one in robotics or green energy—the regulator is guiding the education system towards alignment with the future of work. The focus is clearly shifting from merely increasing the quantity of engineering seats to enhancing the quality and relevance of the graduates they produce.
