20 engg colleges in TN couldn’t fill a single seat

20 engg colleges in TN couldn’t fill a single seat

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:29.10.2020

Thirteen colleges, including 12 government and aided colleges and one self-financing college, filled 100% seats while 20 colleges could not fill a single seat after four rounds of online counselling conducted by Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions committee. Last year, 16 colleges could not get a single student.

This year, 56.4% seats in 461 engineering colleges remained vacant after general counselling.

The absentees in the counselling jumped by 12% compared to previous year. Of the 1,10,836 students who were called for general counselling, 69,752 (62.9%) were allotted seats in four rounds, 6,612 less than last year.

In special categories, including sports, ex-servicemen, differently-abled and vocational stream, 1,443 students got allotment. Overall, 71,195 seats (43.6%) were filled against1,63,154 seats available with 91,959 seats remaining vacant. Last year, 48.2% seats were filled in the counselling.

Due to Covid-19, the number of admissions has come down by 5% in the counselling. However, top colleges say they had a good admission season.

“These colleges have filled more seats despite the Covid-19 crisis. Students and parents gave importance to colleges that have good placement records and faculty members,” said R M Kishore, vice-chairman, RMK Engineering College.

Colleges with poor placement records last year could not attract many students. This year, only 139 colleges were able to fill more than 50% of the seats in the counselling.

“At the end of academic counselling, almost 250 colleges have less than 100 seats in the first year. It is financially not viable for the management to give quality education. Students and faculty members would be affected,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi. A majority of the students joined computer science, information technology, artificial intelligence and data science, electronics and communication, he said.

Principals said around 103 colleges will face a crisis in 2020-21 as they were able to fill less than 10% of their intake. A private college principal said colleges which have less than 10% admissions cannot afford faculty members and conduct classes for these students. “Anna University should intervene and transfer these students to other colleges which have more admissions,” he said.