Analysis of Engineering Seat Proliferation and Employability Realities
The structural proliferation of technical educational institutions has created a profound misalignment between qualification outputs and workplace absorption capabilities. As degree supply scales rapidly across tertiary engineering programmes, the labour market experiences degree inflation, wherein traditional credentials cease to serve as reliable proxies for functional competency [3]. This divergence is predominantly driven by an institutional focus on capacity augmentation at the expense of pedagogical quality and applied training infrastructure. Consequently, substantial cohorts of technical graduates face diminishing employment prospects despite holding accredited degrees [3]. Under contemporary educational policy initiatives, institutional ranking and educational viability have become increasingly dependent on integrating structured skill development within core engineering curricula [2]. However, the institutional transition toward industry-aligned technical skilling remains fragmented across Tier-2 and Tier-3 institutions. Without rigorous curriculum modernisation and active collaboration with industrial sectors, technical seat expansion continues to saturate the labour market with underprepared candidates, accentuating structural underemployment and weakening the socioeconomic returns of higher technical education [2], [3].