Material science finds it difficult to find space in Hyderabad engineering colleges

Metallurgical engineering and material science undergraduate seats are few despite improving career prospects in aerospace, defence, space, healthcare, automotive, and manufacturing.

Only few institutions, such as Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, National Institute of Technology, Warangal, Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies, Basar, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad and Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology, provide the course in the BTech level in Telangana.

Experts blame the shortage on various factors such as paucity of awareness, cost of infrastructure, and strength of faculty.

"For the amount of money that is spent to establish a computer science lab for 60 students, you can only acquire one machine for a metallurgical lab," noted Sai Rama Krishna, assistant professor at IIT-Hyderabad. "It is a course of high capital and more expensive to convey. There are not many students graduating, so it doesn't create much buzz as a course, even though the subject is that of a domain which services major industries like nuclear, mining, and defence."

The low student intake also implies fewer graduates join academia as teachers or researchers. "Even if we take a conservative figure of 6,000 students entering the country overall, we'd require about 600 professors. But very few opt for a PhD and enter academia," said another professor. The majority of students, they added, join renowned corporations shortly after graduation and become industry leaders ten years down the line.

Since there are no special graduates available, organizations pick up allied stream candidates such as electrical or mechanical engineering. "Material science and metallurgical engineers are only moderately sought after, but for that, students from other streams are filling up the gap," said K Ramanjaneyulu, head of the department of MGIT. The difficulty, the teachers noted, also exists at the perception level. Computer science remains the most popular subject among students, relegating the others to the backwaters.