Bengaluru’s evening colleges hit reset with job-integrated, AI courses, ETEducation
Bengaluru: Evening colleges in the city are reinventing themselves to remain relevant and competitive amidst dwindling admissions. They are introducing work-integrated degrees, forming industry collaborations, and launching new-age courses.
According to data from Bangalore University, the number of students enrolled in evening colleges dropped from 1,165 in 2023-24 to 981 in 2024-25, across the 29 colleges under the university. Meanwhile, Dr Manmohan Singh Bengaluru City University (formerly Bengaluru City University) reported that 1,272 students were studying in 23 evening colleges during 2024-25.
Evening colleges target students who work during the daytime. To attract more students, colleges are now designing new courses. For instance, Jyothy Evening College has implemented a work-integrated degree model.
“Students who achieve above 60% in Class 12 can take an aptitude test and interview for placement as trainees with Jyothy Technologies Pvt. Ltd. They undergo three months of training before starting full-time work (9am to 4pm) while attending evening classes (from 4.30pm to 8.30pm) to pursue either BCom or BCA,” said K Rajesh, executive director of the Jyothy Institute of Commerce and Management.
“This model enables students to earn a steady income, fund their education, and graduate with three years of practical industry experience. This is the primary reason our evening college has grown from 15 to 100 students in two years,” he added.
Many colleges are also introducing new courses and upgrading existing ones. “Competition among colleges is intense. Many are offering courses with additional features. For example, BCom programmes now include the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) curriculum. Thus, we have decided to start offering such programmes as well. This year, we introduced a BBA programme, which has received a positive response,” said Mahesh KM, principal of Sri Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain Evening College.
Universities, meanwhile, are also recognising the need for change. “We will soon hold a principals’ meeting for evening colleges. We aim to propose new-age programmes that these colleges can start offering. The low enrolment numbers in evening colleges are mainly due to their focus on conventional programmes. New offerings in subjects like artificial intelligence and machine learning will certainly attract more students,” stated Ramesh B, vice chancellor of BCU.
Amid declining admissions and plummeting UGC funding, some evening colleges have shut down in recent years. “With the govt failing to appoint teachers to aided institutions, management had to bear the costs. Consequently, we were unable to maintain the low tuition fees we once had, leading to the closure of our college,” said Paul Newman, a faculty member at St. Joseph’s University.
“We also shut down other evening colleges in different cities under our management,” Newman added. The university, however, continues to run a third shift from 4.30pm to 8.30pm for its courses.
Source link
