CHENNAI: Going by the application status of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA), it's likely that this year, too, over 50 per cent of the seats will remain vacant, academicians said. So far, 1.79 lakh students have registered for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) while out of them only 1.28lakh students have uploaded their certificates in the portal.
The figures are not very encouraging as it's been a month since TNEA opened its application process and it would continue till the publication of CBSE class 12 results. Last year, within nine days, the number of online registrations had crossed one lakh.
And even the admissions figures were overwhelming. After a lull of five years, private engineering colleges managed to fill around 59 per cent of their seats last year. Otherwise colleges usually struggle to fill even 50 per cent.
"Last year, the scenario was completely different. All students had passed class 12 examination. So, many wanted to pursue engineering. This year, however, demand of engineering courses is again waning," said K Girish, principal of a private engineering college.
There are many reasons for low application figure in TNEA. "Apart from computer science, job opportunities in the remaining engineering streams aren’t very good," said a faculty member of a government engineering college.