CHENNAI: This year’s Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) has concluded and despite all efforts, the authorities have managed to fill up only half of the seats. Out of the total 1,67,652 engineering seats available in colleges in the State, only 83,396 (49.74%) were filled. The figures provided by the TNEA committee shows that in the four rounds of counselling, while 76,364 seats were allotted, in supplementary counselling, another 4,548 seats were filled.
In special reservation category like sports, ex-servicemen and disabled quota, 1,683 students were allotted seats while 801 students, who had registered to participate in TNEA counselling and due to some reason, missed the counselling, were also given a chance to get admission. Private engineering colleges in the State have expressed serious concern over the scenario as they will struggle to stay afloat. Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Anil D Sahasrabudhe, who was in the city recently to attend a convocation ceremony of a private engineering college, had highlighted that engineering courses losing their sheen is not the reason behind the vacancies, the major problem is availability of the higher number of engineering colleges than required in the State.
Secretary of Consortium of Self-Financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges of Tamil Nadu, P Selvaraj has also seconded the opinion of the AICTE chairman. But at the same time, he feels that deemed universities in the State are very liberal in awarding marks to the students and hence, the reason for higher pass percentages.
“So students prefer deemed universities, rather than private colleges affiliated to Anna University, which has a strict evaluation process,” he said.“It is a fact that there are more number of engineering colleges in the State than is actually required. Adding to it, due to the strict rules of Anna University, its affiliated colleges are recording a low pass percentage and the colleges are facing a problem in attracting students,” says Selvaraj.
“On the other hand, the deemed universities, which have their own examination and evaluation pattern, are managing to fill in their seats somehow. It is high time the government looks into these problems,” added Selvaraj. He also added that the consortium has proposed to the State government to set up a separate technical university to improve the situation in engineering colleges across the State.
The counselling this year was conducted by Directorate of Technical Education(DoTE), after a gap of 22 years. TNEA committee secretary T Purushothaman said the counselling process had concluded peacefully and smoothly across the State without any major hindrances.