With the number of seats in undergraduate engineering degree courses
far exceeding the demand in the State, managements of the self-financing
colleges are increasingly finding it financially unviable to run the
institutions.
According to sources in the All India Council for
Technical Education (AICTE), the promoters of at least 22 private
engineering colleges have sought permission to close down their
institutions. The State Government is yet to give its nod considering
the fact that the closure would affect students of these colleges.
AICTE officials said that private colleges across the country have been applying for closure over the past two years.
“Incidentally,
in the academic year 2016-17, as many as 22 engineering colleges and
one architectural college in Tamil Nadu did not have a single
enrollment,” a Higher Education Department official told
The Hindu
.
AICTE officials did not reveal if any of these institutions figured in the list of colleges that have applied for closure.
Authorities
at Anna University however said only three institutions had applied for
closure. “Of these, we permitted one college to close down as it has
already transferred its students to other institutions,” an official
said.
Many engineering colleges are also up for sale. A search on
Google throws up links where colleges have been put up for sale with a
price tag varying between Rs. 25 crore and Rs. 300 crore. Some of these
institutions are located off Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchi.
Advertisers whom this correspondent contacted refused to reveal the colleges names.
“We
will ensure that the rights of the institution or Trust (that
administers the college) are transferred without disturbing its
functioning,” an advertiser said.
Owners look elsewhere
Some
of the consultants/brokers this reporter spoke to candidly admitted
that the owners/trustees wanted to diversify into other businesses or
expand their existing ones.
According to data accessed from the
Directorate of Technical Education, last year, only 52% of B.E./B. Tech
seats were filled in self-financing engineering colleges. Even
government, aided and Anna University’s constituent colleges managed to
fill only around 82% seats.
“Only 1,34,994 candidates applied for
admission through single-window counselling for the 2,77,061 seats in
2016-17,” an official said.
According to a conservative estimate
by engineering educators, only the top 200 colleges managed to fill all
their seats in various departments.
According to one educator, in 55 colleges, less than 100 students were admitted in the last two years.
Officials
said it was not easy to shut down a college. At best, the State
government and the AICTE would only allow partial closure or accept the
college’s decision to not admit students in the future.
“This was done to enable students currently enrolled in the institution to complete their coursework,” an official said.
If
a college management decides to declare inability to pay salaries to
its staff, then it must apply for a no-objection certificate to Anna
University, the affiliating body.
The onus is
on the colleges to transfer the students to other institutions. Only
when the university is satisfied that the college has followed the norms
will the request for closure be processed.