Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 9
“100 percent vacancy in engineering seats in Nagaland” goes a headline of a news report on the website www.dnaindia.com (See: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-100-percent-vacancy-in-engineering-seats-in-nagaland-2592109) on March 9.
Citing “latest data” shared by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), it said that the only engineering college in the state which offers “240 seats does not even have a single taker.” AICTE is the nodal body looking after technical education in the country.
After Nagaland, Meghalaya stood second with the largest vacancies of engineering seats - 47 percent. Manipur has no vacancies at all, 18 colleges in Assam have 34 percent vacancies, others including Sikkim and Tripura are at a better position with less than 40 percent vacancies, it added.
However, what raised eyebrows of many was the opening remark of the first para of the report, “The Northeastern state of Nagaland, which recently formed a coalition government with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has 100 percent vacancy in engineering seats.”
Then it goes on to say, “The state of education in the state is bad as the government has not been able to provide enough quality institutions to cater to students, especially in interior areas... Locals blame the state government for the condition and see a hope for change after a coalition with BJP…”
As per the AICTE website, Nagaland has 8 AICTE Institutes for the academic year 2017-2018 - School of Engineering and Technology (SET); Nagaland Tool Room & Training Centre; Government Polytechnic, Kohima; School Of Management Studies, Nagaland University; Para Medical Training Institute, Kohima; National Institute Of Electronics and Information Technology, Kohima; Khelhoshe Polytechnic, Atoizu; and Institute Of Communication and Information Technology, Mokokchung.
Out of this, SET under Nagaland University, Lumami is the only institute offering undergraduate/degree course under ‘Engineering and Technology,’ the data cited by DNA report.
The school also offers Agricultural Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering and Technology, and Information Technology with intake of sixty seats under each category thus taking the total seats to 240.
Contradicting the report, in-charge of Academic and Examination, SET, Nagaland University, Lumami, told The Morung Express that the report projecting 100 percent vacancy in engineering seats in Nagaland is not true.
He corrected that there are at present 54 students enrolled in the 1st semester in the engineering section alone for 2017-18 academic sessions.
Besides, enrolment in all categories during 2016-17 was 76 with Agricultural Engineering & Technology (AET) being the highest at 23. “Maybe the news reports of 100 percent vacancy in engineering seats are based on old information provided prior to updating,” the in-charge commented adding that the data was updated in the AICTE portal in February this year for both 2016 and 2017 academic sessions.
An academician who wished to maintain anonymity commented that the opening sentence of the report connecting a political body with the vacancy of engineering seems to suggest that it is “politically motivated.”
Moreover, the media should also cross check the facts and figures instead of publishing half-baked reports which are far from true, another academic voiced out.
