This is in response to the news report' Private engineering colleges of state unite to rebuff reports on poor quality of faculty ' (TGE, July 30). It is a difficul pill to swallow that the drop in admissions to degree courses in the four private engineering colleges in Goa is because of the poor quality of the teaching faculty. In this connetion, It is pertinent to mention that these colleges have been awarded high accreditation by he AICTE( All India Council for Technical Education) , and the recruitment standards and criteria for posts in the teaching faculty are very high. The rush for seats in the govt enginering colleges has alwys been so, because of the low fee structure, in comparison with that in private colleges which students find dificult to afford. Secondly, let us not forget that the job situation in Goa is downright deplorable, with the the unemploymet percentage the highest in the the country. In such a bleak scenario where it is difficult for engineers to secure a job, it should not come as a surprise that there is a significant drop in the number of students seeking admission to the degree courses in engineering. A classic example is the mining engineering course which had to be discontinued after mining in Goa came to a halt, leaving no takers for the mining engineering course. Gone are the days when there was a dearth of seats for engineering because of the high demand, and private engineering colleges started to flourish even to extent of charging high capitation fees as their right. Unfortunately these very college are facing closure today, for no fault of theirs.
