Over the past four years, Telangana’s engineering education sector has seen a more than 70% drop in seats for core engineering courses, a decline that has led to widespread layoffs and pay cuts among experienced faculty.
Struggling to make ends meet, many senior professors with advanced degrees and years of teaching experience are now taking on odd jobs, including food delivery and running roadside stalls, to support their families. The shift from traditional disciplines like civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering to newer fields such as artificial intelligence, data science, and cybersecurity has left educators in core branches facing significant hardship.
As of the current academic year, Telangana has approximately 86,943 engineering seats, of which 61,587 are in computer science and related fields. In stark contrast, traditional disciplines are collectively limited to about 7,458 seats for civil, mechanical, and allied branches, with electrical and electronics engineering having just 4,751 seats available.
Even with this restricted intake, around 25% of core engineering seats remain vacant annually. This trend has led to a 50% to 75% reduction in core engineering seats across Telangana’s 175 B.Tech colleges from 2020 to 2024, according to data from the state’s Technical Education Department.
The reduction has had a profound impact on faculty members like Achyuth V, who taught mechanical engineering at a prominent college in Ibrahimpatnam. After enduring a 50% pay cut that left him earning a meager ₹10,000 per month, he felt compelled to leave his teaching job and now works as a delivery executive, earning around ₹600 a day. He also supplements his income by providing two-wheeler taxi rides.
“While I was initially making around ₹40,000, it was reduced to ₹20,000. Then, the management asked me to take another pay cut. I had to leave as there was no way that my family could survive on a mere ₹10,000 a month,” Achyuth said, adding that his children, currently in classes 7 and 8, are unaware of his new job as a delivery driver.
Many faculty members in their forties and fifties have shared similar experiences, explaining that their advanced degrees and decades of experience have not protected them from these layoffs. With limited options in academia or industry, they have been forced to find alternative employment, often taking up jobs far removed from their skill sets and academic training.
D. Srinivas Varma, general secretary of the Telangana Technical Institution Employees Association, called for urgent intervention, stating, “Faculty, who are in their forties and fifties with years of experience, are struggling to survive as neither academia nor industry is keen on utilizing their services. After dedicating their life to teaching for decades, they are now forced to do odd jobs.”
An official from the Telangana Technical Education Department acknowledged the gravity of the situation, adding that plans are underway to adapt seat allocation policies to better align with industry demand. “From the coming academic year, we plan to approve new courses and seats based on industry needs.
This year, we restricted the maximum intake to 120 per course and did not allow an increase in CSE seats to replace core engineering programs. Moving forward, we intend to take a more balanced approach to prevent the core engineering sector from suffering further decline,” the official said.
As the education system faces mounting pressure to cater to changing job market demands, the fate of seasoned engineering faculty hangs in the balance. Calls are growing for the government and universities to intervene with sustainable solutions to prevent further loss of expertise and ensure that experienced educators can continue contributing to the state’s academic and technical progress.
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