Civil engineering students score the lowest in maths, shows report

AICTE survey found civil engineering students to be the worst performers in fundamental subjects

Underlining the precarious situation of India's engineering education system, a new survey shows first-year engineering students across disciplines struggle more with mathematics than any other core subject.

A learning assessment survey by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) found civil engineering students to be the lowest performers in fundamental subjects, the Indian Express report said on Tuesday.

The survey tries to evaluate the quality of technical education and identify learning gaps affecting the employment prospects of engineering graduates.

The report was made after examining 129,000 students from 2,003 AICTE-approved institutes between September 2021 and June 7 this year through a specially designed online test portal named PARAKH. It indicated that most students struggle with mathematics, which sets in at the foundational learning level in primary classes, and remains unaddressed in the school education system.

The first-year students were tested on physics, chemistry, and mathematics, while second, third and fourth-year students were tested on competency in their area of specialisation.

According to the report, the skill levels of 22,725 first-year students showed that "more emphasis is required for maths study in the engineering domain", and "Civil (engineering) is the lowest-performing department across maths, physics and chemistry streams".

The overall report card shows that second-year students performed well, but the performance of third and fourth-year students showed a clear fall.

The survey also found a direct correlation between class 12 board exams and college performance. Students who scored above 85 per cent in the board exams obtained 54 per cent marks in PARAKH, compared to 41.11 per cent by those who had scored 40-55 per cent in their board exams.

The employability of engineering graduates remains a significant area of concern for AICTE. According to the Indian Express report, 396,000 engineering graduates received campus placement offers out of 580,000 students who graduated in 2019-20

Earlier, the AICTE acknowledged that the huge number of vacant seats in colleges was among the reasons behind the drop in quality of engineering education, affecting grades as well as job prospects of students.