COIMBATORE:Just like the large number of engineering seats that remained vacant in the State last year, only 52 per cent of seats in polytechnic colleges got filled up and there were no takers for over one lakh seats. Interestingly, only 8.79 per cent of students who enrolled in diploma courses are girls.
During the academic year 2014-15 , nearly 2,15,652 diploma seats were available in 509 polytechnic colleges across the State. Out of this, only 1,12,952 seats (52.38 %) were filled and the remaining 1,02,700 (47.62 %) remained vacant. While 70-80 per cent of the seats in government and aided polytechnic colleges got filled, over 50 per cent in self-financing colleges remained vacant.
“The attraction among students to join Plus One after completing Class X has increased recently. As students have started scoring high marks, they prefer joining Plus One and pursue arts and science or professional education,” said A Ghousia Jabeen, principal of Government Polytechnic College for Women.
Interestingly, only 9,923 (8.79%) of the total 1,12,952 students who opted for diploma courses are women. Commenting on this, R Sornakumar, principal of Dr Dharmambal Government Polytechnic College for Women in Chennai, said eats in women’s-only polytechnic colleges are filling up while admissions in self financing college have come down. “Only economically weaker section of students who want to get placed at the age of 18 opt for diploma programmes and join polytechnic colleges. With engineering seats available easily, students prefer professional education,” he added.
Academics also felt that there is a structural imbalance in the technical education system. At a workplace, on an average one engineering graduate has to supervise four diploma holders. But, now engineering students outnumber polytechnic students. In 2014-15, totally 2.93 lakh seats were available in 576 engineering colleges in the State, out of which 1.67 lakh seats got filled up.