Chennai: Engineering colleges record 13% more admissions this year – Times of India

CHENNAI: After five years of downward trend, engineering colleges witnessed a good admission season this year. After four rounds of online counseling, 89,187 seats (59%) have been filled, which is 13% more compared to the previous year. The number of vacant seats also came down by more than 21,000 to 62,683.
Of 440 colleges, only ten government institutions were able to fill 100% of their intake. They include College of Engineering, Guindy, and Madras Institute of Technology. And 113 colleges filled more than 80% seats compared to 59 last year while 223 colleges filled more than 50% seats compared to 139 the previous year.

Six colleges could not attract a single student this year, 92 colleges could fill less than 20% seats and 56 colleges could fill less than 10%.
The Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee conducted the general online counselling from September 27 to October 17 in four rounds. “With supplementary counselling yet to be conducted, we expect a few hundred more seats to be filled. Despite several challenges including many students getting identical scores, the online counselling process went off smoothly this year,” TNEA secretary T Purushothaman said.
Under the 7.5% quota for government school students 7,324 seats were filled and 473 seats were filled under special categories such as differently abled.
Career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi said the number of vacant seats may come down to 55,000 after supplementary counselling.
Computer science engineering, electronics and communication engineering and information technology are the most preferred by students. “Mechanical and civil were the least preferred courses. More than 100 colleges have only single digit admissions in mechanical engineering this year,” Gandhi added.
R M Kishore, vice-chairman of RMK Engineering College, said, “More campus hiring by IT companies during the pandemic was one of the major reasons for the positive trend. Students gave more importance to colleges than courses in the last three rounds, which resulted in an overall increase in the number of colleges that filled more than 80% seats this year.”
E Balagurusamy, former vice-chancellor of Anna University, said tier-2 colleges with 50% admissions would be able to survive.“However, colleges with less than 20% admissions cannot provide good infrastructure, faculty members. Around 100 colleges have been continuing to admit students with poor infrastructure and faculty members in the past five years,” he said.
He asked the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Anna University and college managements to come up with alternative plans to save the future of the students who have joined these colleges. “The state government should close these colleges and transfer students to other colleges,” Balagurusamy said.