Diploma engineers get a second shot at BTech, thanks to AICTE’s revived programme for working professionals

NEW DELHI: Arjun Paramanik, a 47-year-old plant manager at the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), had to drop out after finishing his diploma in mechanical engineering in 1998. Despite having an adequate score for admission to BTech, the Asansol (West Bengal) resident couldn't study further as his Railways-employed father's income wasn't enough to finance his and his two siblings' higher education.

So, when the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), in 2023, revived a provision for working professionals to study for and acquire a higher qualification, Paramanik readily enrolled at the Asansol Engineering College (AEC). Now, when not touring the country for his employer or supervising the staff at the steel plant, he goes through engineering textbooks or tunes in to online lectures. The weekends are spent in the college classrooms and laboratories.

"I feel 25 years younger. My college life has returned," exclaims the father of a third-grader.

Paramanik is among the many who got a second shot at education after the technical education regulator introduced specialised programmes for those with day jobs. Technically, Paramanik and other industry professionals at AEC weren't admitted to the courses meant for working professionals – they are enrolled as regular lateral entry students – as despite the AICTE nod, West Bengal's Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology (MAKAUT) didn't recognise these courses until now. However, for all practical purposes, the college treats them as working students, affording them flexible class timings and hybrid learning.

The council, after shelving the ‘part time’ three-year BTech programme in 2019, resurrected the course in October 2023, dropping ‘part time’ from the name while keeping its essence – flexible evening or weekend classes – intact. The duration of the course was left for the states and the universities to decide.

A similar facility was extended for other courses under AICTE, including diploma and postgraduation engineering, BBA, BCA, MBA, MCA, PGDM as well as hotel management and art courses.

While the council had permitted 137 and 174 institutes around the country to respectively offer 306 BE/BTech and 360 diploma courses for working professionals in 2023-24, most of the colleges had failed to draw students as there was little time left in the admission process. In fact, as in the case of AEC, several institutes couldn’t even get the requisite approval from their respective state bodies and universities.

However, the popularity of these courses has soared this year, with many colleges reporting high enrollment numbers in both diploma and degree programmes. Despite their understandable initial struggle to resume education, but buoyed by the prospects of obtaining a higher qualification and the career growth that comes with it, industry professionals are showing enthusiasm for academics. The institutes, too, are going the extra mile to make the learning process as convenient and manageable as possible.

‘Core’ BTech courses popular

Engineering diploma holders vying for higher posts at their workplace have been seeking a formal pathway to a degree. Earlier, many would obtain certifications from professional bodies, such as the Institution of Engineers India (IEI) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers India (IMEI), which were pegged to be equivalent to BTech.

However, in December 2012, the then ministry of human resources development (MHRD) withdrew recognition for these qualifications. Subsequently, AICTE, in 2017, decided to grant equivalence to only those students who were enrolled at the professional institutions till May 2013. The move led to multiple litigations, with the Supreme Court (SC) in 2019 endorsing MHRD and AICTE’s decisions.

The revised norms for working professional courses, notified by AICTE in January 2024, allow technical institutes with more than 80% average enrollment in the three previous years to start these programmes.

The aspirants must reside or work within 75 km radial distance – the earlier limit was 50 km – from the institute and should possess at least a year’s work experience to be eligible for admission. The syllabus and the assessment system for the working professional programmes are the same as that for regular programmes.

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According to an assessment of the information available on AICTE’s website, 421 engineering colleges and polytechnics have been permitted to offer around 1,200 courses – 471 diploma, 544 BE/BTech, 186 ME/MTech and a postgraduation certificate – with a cumulative 36,500 seats.

Interestingly, the ‘core’ engineering courses of mechanical, electrical and civil outnumber the ‘circuit’ branches, namely computer science, electronics and telecommunication. This stands in contrast to the recent trends in regular engineering courses, where core streams have given way to computer science and allied disciplines. The reason, according to the colleges, is that core sector companies employ more diploma holders than the information technology (IT) firms.

Tamil Nadu institutes have been allowed the highest – 245 – courses, followed by Maharashtra (180) and Andhra Pradesh (120). The bulk of the working professional programmes are concentrated in select districts, such as Pune (Maharashtra), Kanchipuram, Coimbatore, Thiruvallur (Tamil Nadu) and Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), which already have a high concentration of technical colleges thanks to various industrial units functioning in these places.

Despite the encouraging response, the regulator is moving cautiously towards expanding these courses. "This policy has created a great impact. We are getting emails from students saying there are no institutions in our area. We were very selective and had allowed only 400 institutions to start the programme for working professionals. We were apprehensive that it should not be misused. After one or two years, we will open it to all,” said AICTE member secretary Rajive Kumar.

‘Companies coming forward’

Many of the engineering institutes offering the new working professional programmes got an overwhelming response. For example, the Agni College of Technology in Chennai, which started undergraduate programmes in mechanical, civil and electrical engineering for working professionals this year, filled all its seats. The programmes have attracted not only the engineers, but also their employers. The institute has signed an agreement with the engineering and technology conglomerate Siemens to upgrade its workforce.

“We can see a lot of interest among aspirants. The companies themselves are coming forward,” said Srinivasan Alavandar, principal of the college.

The Sunrise Institute of Engineering Technology and Management, the sole institute to offer a working professional course in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao, saw all the available spots for its electrical engineering diploma course taken this year. “There’s a heavy demand for the course from Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) and Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) employees, because only a limited number of colleges and universities have them,” said Gaurav Srivastava, director of the institute

AEC has also admitted around 70 mechanical and civil engineers from SAIL, Eastern Coalfield Limited (ECL) and other companies operating in Asansol’s industrial belt, even though the varsity approval for the college’s working professional programmes is still awaited.

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“Many people, who take up jobs due to family needs after a diploma, have a dream of pursuing higher degrees. AICTE has now allowed them to do the degree courses during the evening. We currently have two courses – mechanical and civil – and plan to add electrical in the next year. While we got approval for these programmes for the last two years, they are yet to be affiliated with MAKAUT. However, since candidates started approaching us, we admitted them as lateral students. Now that the university has prepared the course structure and duration of working professional courses, we hope to start them from the upcoming year,” said Gaurishankar Panda, in-charge principal of the institute.

Kumar concurs that the popularity of the courses depends on the presence of related industries in the respective areas. “A large number of admissions are taking place, in some areas in one branch, in other areas in another branch. It is not like in all institutions all the seats are filled. If there is a concentration of manufacturing in one area, the mechanical stream is getting filled, wherever there is the IT sector the computer science stream is getting filled,” he said.

BTech for working professionals: The flip side

However, these courses are yet to take off at some of the institutes due to low demand, teething problems and regulatory limitations. Dreamz Polytechnic at Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi had obtained AICTE’s permission for an electrical engineering diploma but couldn’t get the requisite 30% of student intake, resulting in the programme lying dormant. “Fulfilling the 75km distance condition is a challenge in the hills; it might be possible in the plains,” said Dinesh Kumar, principal of the institute.

In Maharashtra, where the admissions to working professional BE/BTech courses was carried out centrally by the state CET Cell, only around 650 candidates were admitted to technical courses in 2024-25 against over 2,600 intake capacity. The colleges blamed the delayed admission process and lack of awareness among prospective students for the underwhelming response.

“A few students had been allotted our college for mechanical engineering courses in the first round of admission, but since the enrollment didn’t cross the 30% mark, they were shifted to another government-run college. There were still fewer candidates for computer engineering across the University of Mumbai (MU). We hope for a better response next year,” said the principal of an MU-affiliated college.

AICTE had approved an electrical engineering diploma for working professionals at Sri Sai Polytechnic College at Gurdaspur, Punjab in 2023-24. However, the state's technical education board informed the institute that the permission had been revoked, said the principal Mukesh Gupta.

What drives students

According to the colleges, the promise of promotions remains the key incentive. While finding the will and discipline to study after a long gap isn’t easy for many, the teachers have found their new students excited, even more so than the regular ones. None of the colleges who spoke to Careers360 has so far seen any drop-outs. Most of the students maintain the minimum attendance threshold, they assured.

“Most of our working students have 10 to 15 years of experience. While they are facing some difficulty in learning, they are showing more interest than the regular students. The topics are related to their field of expertise. They are already doing practical work. Now, they are understanding the theory,” said K Leela Prasad, principal of Behara Subhakar Polytechnic in Gopalapatnam (Vishakhapatnam).

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The institute had to filter out 29 candidates from 90 applicants for its mechanical and electronic diploma courses for working employees at the Naval Dockyard, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) facilities and Railways as well as private sector bodies.

Tailored BTech curriculum

Besides scheduling classes at convenient times and even offering online lectures, the institutes are tailoring the course content and teaching methods to suit the needs of industry professionals. Due to the limited academic hours, the Vishakhapatnam polytechnic focuses on covering only the main concepts in the curriculum. It helps that the working students are already familiar with the fundamentals of their subjects. The passing score is a mere 25%.

The Uttar Pradesh Board of Technical Education has even cut down the syllabus for those enrolled at the state’s polytechnics. While regular students need to clear six compulsory subjects in a semester, the working ones have only five, of which only three are considered for result scores.

The colleges are also clear as to what these students signed up for and simply teach them to test. “We tell them about the must-do questions and familiarise them with previous years’ question papers. All they need to do is to pass the exam - something they can manage to do,” said Srivastava, adding, “These are practical-oriented candidates. They have already seen everything. They just need the diploma.”

The experts, however, believe that, instead of doing the bare minimum, the colleges should take efforts to upgrade the skills of professionals in emerging areas of engineering and technology.

“With the new technologies and equipment coming up, additional skill-building is a must for engineers. In order to become more employable in any branch of engineering, the students must be trained in data science, business analytics and programming. While some colleges are doing it, others are lagging as it involves expenditure,” said former AICTE chairman Shankar Mantha.

Nevertheless, the experience of having industry people on campus has so far proved to be mutually beneficial to the learners as well as the institute. “My teachers are younger than me. While they share their theoretical knowledge, we update them practically based on our industry experience. The other students benefit from it,” said Paramanik, who now plans to continue his education till PhD. He hopes that a BTech degree will allow him to look for better employment opportunities, or even set up his own business.