JNTU-Hyderabad: AI, ML, IoT programmes losing sheen among students?

The new disciplines appear to be losing sheen among the student community and parents with several private engineering colleges seeking merger of seats in these courses with the CSE for the next academic session

Hyderabad: Was the allure for emerging engineering technology programmes, a short-lived one?

The new disciplines including Data Science, Internet of Things, Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning appear to be losing sheen among the student community and parents with several private engineering colleges seeking merger of seats in these courses with the CSE for the next academic session.

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The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) – Hyderabad, for the academic year 2024-25, has received applications from around 140 private engineering colleges seeking the merger of programmes.

Several managements have sought merger of seats in Data Science, Internet of Things, and Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning programmes into the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) programme. Some private colleges also sought permission to convert seats in the Information Technology branch, into the CSE.

According to officials, some colleges sought complete merger of seats in these emerging engineering and technology programmes while some management wanted conversion with a considerable reduction in seats and an equal number increase of intake in CSE programme.

During the academic year 2023-24, the private engineering colleges slashed 6,930 seats mainly in the Civil, Mechanical, Electronics & Communication Engineering, and Electrical and Electronics Engineering programmes and an equal number of seats was enhanced in the CSE and allied branches such as AI & ML, Data Science, Cyber Security and IoT.

“As demand for some of the emerging engineering programmes is not up to the mark, the colleges are looking the CSE way. Though the colleges have sought permission the State government will take final call,” an official said.

In all, the university received applications seeking affiliations from 216 colleges including those offering engineering, pharmacy, MBA and MCA programmes for the academic year 2024-25. Since, the AICTE relaxed the mandatory NBA accreditation for adding new courses or increasing intake for the next academic session, the number of seats are expected to go up considerably.

The university intends to complete the affiliation process by the first week of April. Accordingly, the university is set to commence inspections of the colleges with fact finding committees on March 1.

“The FFC inspections will take about 10-15 days. Entire affiliation process is expected to be completed by the end of this March or first week of April,” the official added.