Internships for engineering students will now become a mandatory part of their course in all colleges across the country. Without the experience of the internship, students will not be given their degrees.
The step has been taken to increase the employability of engineering students as recent surveys have shown that only around 35 percent of students who pass out from various engineering institutions in India are employable.
At present, engineering students are also required to do internships, but according to the government data, only five percent of colleges give a chance to their students.
The government is now working on a plan by which all students in engineering colleges will have to do mandatory internships. They will also write letters to industries, including corporates and small-scale sectors, wherever internships are possible to give opportunities to students. The plan that will start from the coming academic year will be made a part of the curriculum in the next three years by when the government will have a structure that they follow for internships.
The decision was taken in a recently held meeting of officials from the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and officials from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).
Confirming the development, Anil Sahastrabuddhe, Chairman of AICTE, said, “At present also engineering institutes get internships for its students but only five percent of them. We want all the institutions to facilitate internships so that students can become employable once they gain industry exposure. This is the reason that we are making internships mandatory.”
“We will ask the placement teams of engineering colleges to facilitate internships for the students. From our part, we will write to the industries,” he added. Students will also be required to complete an industry-linked course compulsorily as a part of their course to graduate.
AICTE will soon send a circular in this regard to all institutions that are affiliated with it.
The government has been concerned about the lack of technical education in the country and has been taking various steps to improve the situation by introducing a common entrance. In a recently held interaction with the media, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had also expressed concern over the deteriorating quality of technical education in the country.
In the last three years, around 400 engineering colleges have been shut down because they were not getting any students, and the students who passed out from these institutions were not getting employment anywhere, Javadekar had told the media.