AICTE: At 81%, BTech enrolment highest in 5 years; MTech’s lowest at 33%

NEW DELHI: According to the latest data shared by All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the 2022-23 academic year saw the highest percentage of BTech seats filled in five years. About 81% of undergraduate seats in over 12 lakh seats spread across all engineering colleges were filled, the highest since 2018-2019. The same year saw the lowest pass percentage with just 46% of BTech students graduating.

Till the 2021-22 season, enrolment in undergraduate engineering had dropped to alarming levels leading to AICTE imposing a ban on the establishment of new engineering colleges. However, the sharp increase prompted AICTE to lift its three-year ban on opening new engineering colleges in traditional streams of engineering in degree, diploma and postgraduate programmes in March 2023.

AICTE officials had earlier told Careers360 that the introduction of minor degree courses in 2020 was the main gamechanger. It initially allowed BTech students to pursue a minor degree in emerging areas of technology, such as robotics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cyber security, data science and others. In 2023-24, it allowed all branches of engineering to be offers as minor degrees.

While BTech numbers have improved significantly, enrolment in postgraduate courses – MTech – has decreased over the years. Only 33% – a third – of the approved seats were filled in 2022-23.

BTech, MTech Courses: % of seats filled

However, from 2018-19 to 2022-23, over 1.3 lakh engineering seats were culled from the system. The number of seats reduced from 14,04,640 in 2018-19 to 12,74,190 in 2022-23.