HYDERABAD: Polytechnic colleges, which offer diploma courses in engineering after Class 10, do not have many takers this year too, as last year. Even after the improvement round of POLYCET-2018, nearly 32 per cent seats in the government, aided and private polytechnic colleges are vacant. According to the department of technical education, of the 38,089 seats available in 169 colleges across the state, 12,193 seats have failed to attract any students. The poor response can also be gauged from the fact that only 51 colleges have achieved 100 per cent intake. Of these, 44 are government colleges, six private unaided and one is aided college.
Though the 55 government institutions have fared well with 97.22 seats filled —of 11,619 available seats, 11,296 have been filled —private unaided institutions, which number 112, have only a little over half of the seats occupied. These 112 private colleges with 26,110 seats have a whopping number of 12,193 (45.46 pc) seats not filled. The situation was similar in 2017 too when of the 44,451 seats in 185 government and private polytechnics, only 31,312 seats were filled. In 2016, 14,721 seats were still vacant even after counselling.
54 colleges shut
The declining popularity of the diploma courses over the last few years has also resulted in dozens of colleges being closed down. There were 223 polytechnics in 2016 and the number came down to 185 in 2017. This year the total count has further dropped to 169. In just a couple of years, 54 polytechnics have shut down. This has also brought down the intake, from 58,080 seats in 2016 to 38,089 in 2018.
B Srinivas, camp officer, Telangana State Common Entrance Tests (CETs), told Express that with more options at their disposal, students had become choosy. Teachers at private polytechnics admit that with inspection norms for polytechnics not as stringent as it is for other technical institution, managements run their colleges only to make profits. Hence the bare minimum facilities and resources.
“They often recruit fresh B.Tech graduates by paying them a salary of just `7,000 a month. The quality of education naturally suffers. And this is eventually affecting the popularity of the courses,” said KM Karthikeya, funder, All India Private Colleges Employees Union.
Another round of counselling from June 11
Poor response from the students seems to have forced officials to conduct another round of counselling from June. Students who have not paid processing fee are required to do so between June 8-11. Allotment of seats will be notified on June 13 on tspolycet.nic.in. Candidates will have to report to their colleges on June 14-15.
Over 58,000 attend Eamcet first phase counselling
In the first phase of web counselling for Eamcet 2018 that concluded on Tuesday, 58,047 candidates have exercised their web options while 59,034 have attended the certificate verification programme. The number of students who attended the first round of counselling this year are fewer than last year. This, however, according to Department of Technical Education officials, does not mean the popularity of engineering course is on the decline. “This time they will attend the second round of counselling after their results are out,” said B Srinivas, camp officer, Eamcet.