CHENNAI: In a new trend in engineering admissions, more top-ranking Tamil Nadu students are choosing private engineering colleges over government colleges. One city private college even trumped Anna University’s CEG and MIT campus colleges for the top choice of general category students in the first round of counselling that ended on Sunday.
Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar (SSN) College of Engineering, which has 487 seats under the general category, has managed to fill 428 seats in the first round. While the private college has managed to fill 87.89% of seats, Anna University’s CEG and MIT campus colleges have filled only 86.82 % and 85.58% seats, respectively. Only 83.87% seats in (Central Electrochemical Research Institute) CECRI, affiliated to Anna University, have been filled after the first round of counselling.
Usually, Anna University’s CEG, MIT, and CECRI are the most preferred colleges by top rankers in the first round of counselling. Top scorers usually prefer government colleges over private ones because of lower fee and better quality of faculty. But the scenario is different this time.
Surpassing many government colleges, private colleges, including those that have not made it to the NIRF rankings or are not among the top ranking colleges in NIRF, have emerged as the 30 most preferred colleges this year. Apart from SSN, a few other top picks are Chennai Institute of Technology (CIT) and PSG Institute of Technology.
‘Govt engg colleges find few takers’
Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology, RMK Engineering College and Sri Venkateshwara College of engineering, too, have become the most preferred colleges in the first round. Chennai Institute of Technology ranks fifth in terms of preference by general students in the first round and has managed to fill 73.40% of its seats.
Contrastingly, government engineering colleges in districts seem to find very few takers in the first round. The Government College of Engineering in Coimbatore, which was in the top-10 list of most preferred colleges last year, failed to attract rank holders and managed to fill only 49.69% of seats after the first round. Last year, Central Electro Chemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, was the top preferred college in the first round of counselling, followed by MIT and CEG campus colleges of Anna University.
Last year, CECRI filled 97% of its seats and MIT and CEG filled 93.75% and 92.35% seats in the first round. Experts attribute the trend to aggressive marketing by private colleges and poor infrastructure in government ones. “Along with marketing strategies, quality of infrastructure in private colleges works in their favour,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi who has analysed engineering counselling data for many years.
“Apart from Anna University campus colleges, infrastructure in most government engineering colleges is not up to the mark. The government needs to upgrade laboratories and hostels to attract students,” said a faculty member of a government engineering college. After the first round of TNEA counselling, 10,340 of 14,524 students were allotted seats. This is nearly 3% more than last year.