THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the admission procedures to engineering colleges for 2018-'19 academic year come to a close, 50% seats remain vacant. Last year, around 45% seats were vacant.Compared to last year, several self-financing colleges brought down their shutters this time. The total number of colleges affiliated to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University has come down to 147, from 152 in 2017-18 academic year.This year, the number of seats has come down to 49,751, which is almost 5,000 seats less than last year. Now, only 25,500 seats were filled and 24,451 remains vacant.Addressing a meeting of technical education institution heads (principals and managers), higher education minister K T Jaleel asked them to take urgent steps to improve quality of higher education sector. Admitting students sans aptitude and shrinking job opportunities were the major reasons for the slump in enrolment, the minister said. "While only a score of 2% was mandatory for candidates to seek admission, 45% marks is required to clear the course," he said pointing at the delepeting quality.The self-financing engineering college management association representatives proposed the government to insist entrance test only for candidates seeking admission to government quota seats. Since half of the seats remain vacant, the government should allow the management to admit students from within and outside the state, without insisting on passing the entrance test, the association representatives said.The minister also wanted the self-financing colleges to strictly follow AICTE guidelines, according to which only 20% of faculty should be appointed on contract basis. In order to improve the quality of higher education, all colleges should obtain NBA and NAAC accreditations. At present, only 15 colleges are accredited.

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