CHENNAI: The worst of the recession is over. But education sector is just beginning to feel the heat as the second phase of engineering counselling drew to a close. While Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) course was heavily in demand, Information Technology (IT) failed to make waves.
Students with an aggregate marks of 140 and lesser were counselled in the second phase. Almost 80 per cent of the students opted for ECE without bothering about the quality of education at the colleges where they got admission. “Of the 454 engineering colleges, almost 50 per cent lack basic engineering infrastructure. So, there is no reason why students should choose the ECE course without making proper checks,” says a source with the Tamil Nadu Engineering Counselling on condition of anonymity. “Almost all students who came for counselling from last Monday to Thursday opted for ECE. This when almost 80 per cent of the colleges that make campus recruitments are IT based. Colleges also want to cater to the new trend. They want to surrender IT seats,” the source adds.
The trend was set in 2008, when IT recruitments slowed down due to economic recession. In 2009, only 44 per cent of IT seats were filled compared to 83 per cent of ECE. Both students and parents fail to notice that top 10 IT recruiters have now revived their businesses and plan to recruit almost three to four lakh students within a year. “Massive intake by IT companies will focus on IT students. Almost 90 per cent of the work that happens in IT industry is IT application oriented and not electronics related. IT students are specialists in programming languages like Unix and Java and C++. ECE students learn more of embedded applications for particular products,” says C Mahalingam, Global Human Resources head, Symphony Services Corporation. “If colleges decide to surrender IT courses it would be a shortsighted and misinformed decision,” he adds.
But it seems the demand for ECE and other core engineering disciplines has already made 90 per cent of the engineering colleges in Chennai myopic. They have increased their ECE intake. Dr S Vaidhyasubramaniam of SASTRA University, however, has a different take.“The ECE is popular because it is flexible. At the end of day, IT companies look for analytical, quantitative and English skills in the student. All engineering disciplines have a course to train in languages like C++. Programming logic is what they look for. Instead of blindly opting for ECE, students should look at studying the sciences. The big IT firms are planning to recruit B.Sc and M.Sc students,” he says. Mahalingam backs him when he says that 40,000 to 50,000 students from science disciplines would be recruited.