CHENNAI: As many as 80 — or one-fifth — of the 401 private polytechnic colleges in Tamil Nadu have opted out of the admission process this academic year. The unprecedented development has brought to light the issues ailing polytechnic education — at private institutions in particular — where colleges and seats are aplenty, but takers few.
According to officials of the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE), of these 80 colleges, 35 have applied for permanent closure in the last two years, while the remaining have chosen not to admit students this year. “Some of these colleges have failed to enrol students even in single-digit figures in the last three years. Hence, we have not asked them to join admissions,” said an official.
Experts attribute the declining enrolment to the rising interest among students in engineering courses and the high fees charged by private polytechnic colleges. “When a student can study a course in a government college for just Rs 2,500 a year, why would they want to spend Rs 30,000 in a private college,” said the principal of a private college in Coimbatore.
P Selvaraj, secretary of the Consortium of Self-financing Professional, Arts and Science Colleges in TN, said private polytechnic colleges are struggling to fill even half their seats and operational costs are taking a toll on their survival.
‘Enrolments in polytechnic colleges show notable improvement’
“In such a scenario, they are unable to upgrade infrastructure or launch courses in emerging fields to attract students,” Selvaraj said. “Earlier, only top-scoring students opted for engineering courses. However, students who have performed below average also want to pursue engineering now as they consider it more prestigious,” he said.
Last year, of the 1,43,499 polytechnic seats available in government, government-aided and private colleges combined, only 58,426 (40%) seats were filled. Of these, private institutions filled only 37,720 of 1,10,656 available seats, which is 34%. Comparatively, government and government-aided institutions managed to fill 68% and 57% of their available seats respectively.
Commissioner of Technical Education J Innocent Divya agreed that the rising number of engineering seats is a factor affecting polytechnic enrolments, but she said that admission this year, which is still under way, has shown signs of notable improvement.
“This year, we have so far managed to fill almost 80% seats in 55 government colleges and over 70% seats in 31 aided colleges. In private colleges as well, figures are better than last year,” she said. In 321 private colleges, over 36,000 seats have been filled so far and the numbers are likely to rise further.
“The polytechnic education boom was at its peak in the late 1990s; thereafter engineering courses’ popularity soared. However, we have been taking dedicated measures to popularise polytechnic courses and improve enrolments,” she added.
Listing the measures, she pointed out integrating Industry 4.0 principles into the polytechnic curriculum, which includes upgrading infrastructure, developing an industry-relevant curriculum and enhancing faculty training.
“We are also bringing changes in evaluation patterns and focusing on outcome-based learning to enhance the skills of our students,” she said. To boost the enrolment figures, the DoTE, starting this year, has allowed colleges to enrol all Class 12 students, including commerce and arts stream students, in the second year of diploma courses in polytechnic colleges.