Nearly 16 lakh students enrol in over 3,300 approved engineering colleges every year. And yet, there is a deficit of high-quality engineers in the country—a 2016 survey of engineering graduates showed that just 7% could competently carry out a core engineering task. The quality of prospective students (which depends on their higher secondary education) is one of the major determinants of the overall quality of engineering graduates. Entrance tests should have, thus, served as useful benchmarking of student quality. Only, in India, the solution has also morphed into being part of the problem. Many states conduct their own engineering…
