subject: Engineering Colleges In Kerala: Are We Spoilt For Choice? [print this page] Choosing the right institution for higher education can be a daunting task even if one is exploring colleges within a state. In Kerala, for instance, in the last 10 years engineering colleges have proliferated so rapidly that their number today stands close to 125. The number of seats has more than quadrupled since 1999. This has thrown open enormous opportunities to the student community. But at the same time it has made the process of making the right and informed choice rather difficult. A little awareness of the various colleges will help you make the choice with less trepidation.
Some of the factors that you need to consider while choosing a college, no matter where, are (1) the management running the college, (2) how old the college is, (3) public perception of the college, (4) fee structure, (5) availability of the branch of your choice, (6) placement track record, (7) academic performance of the students in general, (8) the university to which the college is affiliated, (9) the faculty profile, (10) ICT and library facilities, (11) the physical infrastructure, (12) recreational facilities, (13) accessibility and commuting time, (14) the overall culture of the college community.
These factors are listed above in no particular order of importance. Which of these matter the most to you is a matter of individual choice. Often we are do not go by a list of criteria and rankings in each; it is the general impression of a college that determines our preferences. Although it is quite likely that our impressions are formed based on many of the criteria listed above, albeit not consciously.
Broadly speaking engineering colleges in Kerala are run by 5 different types of management: (1) government (2) government-aided, (3) government-controlled self-financing, (4) private self-financing, and (5) the National Institute of Technology (NIT).
There are nine government engineering colleges and three government-aided engineering colleges in Kerala. The first engineering college in the StateCollege of Engineering, Trivandrumwas started in 1938. The youngest government engineering college came up in the year 2000. In the case of government colleges we can see that it takes years to build the physical infrastructure and there is a strong correlation between the facilities available and the years of existence. In aided colleges the facilities available depend a lot on the individual management.
Among self-financing colleges under government control, the third category, there are nine colleges under IHRD, six colleges under Co-operative Academy of Professional Education, colleges under LBS, KSRTC, Centre for Continuing Education, and the universities (Kerala, MG, Calicut, CUSAT, and Kerala Agricultural University).
Established in 1989, the first engineering college to come up under this category was the Model Engineering College. The last college in this group came up in 2008.
In almost all cases, there is a clear correlation between the age of the college and the facilities it provides.
Established in 1994, the first private self-financing college in the State was the MES College of Engineering, Kuttippuram. In 2001 10 new self-financing colleges came up. In 2002 there were 28 more. A few more colleges joined the list in the next couple of years. Almost 8 years later many more were to venture into self-financing; 20 new engineering colleges started in 2009 and 12 in 2010. A few more are likely to make it this year. Within the self-financing group we have diverse kind of managements by individuals, by groups of professionals, by NRIs, by minority groups, by the Kerala Catholic Engineering College Managements' Association. It is only natural that the vision and the focus of a college differ depending on who manages it. So we have some colleges that strive to be centers of excellence while others do little or nothing to go beyond mediocrity. Here we would not see a correlation between performance and age.
More than 25 percent of these colleges are barely 2 to 3 years old, hence indicators such as academic performance of students and placement statistics may not be available because the first batch is yet to come out of these campuses. So in those cases one should make other parameters the criteria for selecting a college.
