The engineering colleges of the state are suffering from quite a large number of vacant seats for the academic session 2024-25. Out of approximately 14,469 seats allocated to six engineering disciplines, 2,701 seats are still vacant, leading to a vacancy of about 19%. Further, around 2,000 such unoccupied seats are reserved for the female students.
Generally, an entrance engineering college in the state has an intake of about 360 seats in a particular session. Most of the seats for the girl student remain empty despite efforts in promoting the technical education towards women. Similar is the case with polytechnic institutions. Almost 2,001 seats are vacant, however, only about 17,054 seats are available. It indicates that this has also been a similar challenge in this regard as well.
Encouragingly, there has been a noticeable increase in interest among female students toward engineering disciplines. In the current session, 3,000 female students have enrolled in various engineering trades across 38 colleges in Bihar. This is an uptick from the previous year, which saw approximately 2,700 female enrollments. The state reserves 33.33% of engineering seats for women, totaling 4,822 seats. However, with only 3,000 enrollments, about 1,822 seats reserved for women remain vacant.
Female students have shown a preference in the branches of computer science, electronics and communications, and civil engineering, while interest in mechanical engineering is lowest. Absence of vacancies at the moment, the numbers continue to increase positively in the direction of gender equality in technical education for the state.
Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board in this regard has open all new registration for a whopping 3,312 vacant seats in 38 engineering colleges plus 104 seats in Dairy and CIPET programs in October 2024. The recruitment window was on for seven days from October 10 to 16, and the merit list was published on October 19.
Despite such concerted efforts, the ever-withholding vacancies indicate that a strong need is still entailed to continue the efforts of attracting and retaining students, especially females, in engineering programs throughout Bihar.