Growth of Engineering Education in India

Abstract

This article examines the growth of engineering education in India in the post-economic reform period using the secondary data published by Ministry of Human Resource Development, University Grants Commission and All India Council for Technical Education. Particularly, this article has focused on three important dimensions of engineering and technical education in India—institutional expansion, enrolment pattern and public financing. It finds that there has been a massive expansion of both institutions and enrolment in engineering education in India during the post-liberalization period, and this expansion has apparently taken place in the private sector. Also, as expected, the enrolment in engineering education has increased fast compared to other disciplines and overall enrolment growth of higher education. However, this massive expansion of engineering education has not been able to provide access to the disadvantaged groups, namely women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. The study also reveals that the public expenditure on engineering education has not increased at par with the increase in enrolment in this sector, which has resulted in the decline in per student public expenditure. The issues and concerns discussed in this article have brought up some promising avenues for future research in this area.