COIMBATORE: The managements of private engineering colleges have demanded scrapping of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission process stating that they felt that admission to engineering colleges should be left to the college managements similar to that of arts and science or polytechnic colleges, since the demand is lesser than supply. Otherwise, they suggested that the State government and Anna University conduct separate counselling for other State candidates.
“Out of this one lakh seats which gets filled up through TNEA, around 50,000 seats were from elite 75 colleges. The remaining 475 colleges get the remaining 50,000 admissions. Similar to the way counselling for polytechnic colleges was stopped few years back, due to fall in demand of seats, the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission should also be scrapped,” said TD Eswaramoorthy, Joint Secretary, Association of Management of Coimbatore Anna University affiliated college.
If engineering colleges were allowed to conduct admissions on their own, then seats in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 colleges gets filled up. Without enough of admissions, college managements struggle to run their institutions, he added.
He also said, “Not all engineering colleges are poorly equipped. Colleges were started with the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and Anna University affiliation. Just 10 percent of colleges do not have adequate infrastructure. This creates a negative image about colleges.”
“If the State government and Anna University conduct a separate counselling for other State students, around 50,000 to 75,000 more seats could get filled up,” he pointed out.
Countering his arguments, Anna University former Vice Chancellor E Balagurusamy said, “Only through Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission, we are ranking the students based on their performance in the plus-II examination, and they were allotted colleges and courses depending on their merit.
“If the admission is totally handed over to the management, then even those students who have score good marks in Plus II, should have to pay more fee to get admission in a good engineering college. In bad colleges, nobody will join,” he added.
“The private engineering college should first understand their strength and weaknesses. Then they should start improving their institution,” he advised.
Rather, he suggested merger of few engineering colleges in a region, who failed to attract adequate students.
“By merging few engineering colleges together, they can get adequate number of students for each branch of study. So, each college can choose a particular branch and concentrate on them and these group of institutions can develop them in a particular branch of study,” he said.