Gujarat Technological University (GTU) has rolled out a mandatory 12-week internship clause for final-year engineering students to address the issue of the declining popularity of engineering programmes in the state. The internship was only optional so far at the largest technical university with over 5,400 affiliated colleges and over 4 lakh students.
Initiated from the ongoing semester that commenced from January 16, over 40,000 engineering (BE and BTech) students in their eighth semester across all branches are undergoing a mandatory three-month field internship.
The decision followed several rounds of brainstorming sessions with principals of engineering colleges as well as industry experts with the recent one that was held with over 300 principals.
It also comes in the backdrop of several complaints being reported from industries about students faking and purchasing project reports of their voluntary internships. “During these sessions, one common thread that emerged was that the quality of engineers coming out of colleges has declined because students are not going in the field. Acting on this, GTU converted the last semester (eighth) semester entirely into internship — the first such batch introduced with this clause from this year. There will be no classes and teaching for students,” GTU Vice-Chancellor Prof Navin Sheth told The Indian Express.
For this, one mentor from the industry and institutes has been assigned for every student. Various industry associations and prominent industry leaders have also tied up to assure implementation of the decision.
The decision is also said to be pushed by a unanimous call from industries to engineering institutes to attune their teaching in accordance with the demand.
“A repeated feedback from industries received was that the products coming out from institutes cannot be directly employed. Since we cannot train students as per specific industry requirements, the solution of a mandatory internship where industries can train students for their particular brand was agreed upon by both institutes and industries. It was realised that students need a full-time, hands-on practice not only in technical aspects but also soft skills, too, a kind of industry readiness to bring in excellency in students,” said Prof Rajul Gajjar, Principal, LD College of Engineering, Ahmedabad.
Colleges were also directed to collect information on vacancies for internships from the industries and upload them on the official website from where students can choose. While some companies are offering stipends, others have assured direct placements, too, for selected students.
Looking at the instances of faking reports, in order to track students’ performances, a monitoring format has been prepared and distributed among industries.
“GTU has generated a monitoring mechanism in which industries will give a monthly feedback on students’ performance, it need not be quantitative but can be qualitative. Previously, before this mandate, there were complaints of students purchasing project reports,” said Prof G P Vadodaria, Dean Faculty of Engineering and Technology at GTU.
While colleges have deputed one mentor for every four students, a few have even gone ahead with offering internships in earlier semesters, too. “Looking at the demand for industry exposure which certainly improves employability prospects of students, LDCE has also opened short-period internships for fourth and fifth semesters from this academic session,” Prof Gajjar added.
With better employability prospects, this decision is expected to generate a demand for engineering seats, which have been reporting few takers each year.
This year again, nearly half of the total engineering seats across institutes in Gujarat remained vacant. Of the total 64,241 seats (excluding management quota and NRI seats for which institutes conduct admissions on their own), 32,632 seats were allotted to candidates across a total of 133 engineering institutes in the state after the completion of the final rounds of admissions conducted by the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC) — the central admission agency.
This is a little over the nearly 50.79 per cent seats that were filled in 2021-22 against 42.47 per cent seats that were filled in 2020.