Admissions to mechanical engg course at all-time low

Admissions to mechanical engg course at all-time low

Just One In 4 Seats Filled In Counselling

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:11.11.2020

Admissions to mechanical engineering course have been on a decline since 2017 and this year is no different. Engineering colleges were able to fill around just one in four seats for the course.

About five years ago, mechanical engineering was the most sought after course. In 2020, however, or 8,179 of the 29,354 seats — a mere 28% — were filled in online counselling, conducted from October 1 to 28. Only 11of 461engineering colleges were able to fill all seats for mechanical engineering course this year and 75 colleges could fill more than 50% of seats during counselling.

“Even some top engineering colleges also could not fill 50% of (seats for the course) ,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi.

The declining trend could be a result of preference for white collar jobs, outdated syllabus and fewer placements due to poor growth of the manufacturing sector. Branches like computer science engineering and information technology had more takers with 65% and 71% of seats filled. Even newly launched courses like artificial intelligence and data science had more takers with more than 60% seats filled in the counselling Nagaraj, a professor from the mechanical engineering department of a private college, said students preference for white collar jobs is reflecting in the poor admission rate.

“IT companies provide attractive offers while core companies are unable to do so. It is also a reflection of the poor growth of the manufacturing sector in our country despite various government programmes,” he said. Industry automation has also brought down the requirement of engineers in recent years, he added.

The poor admission rate will also affect faculty members as colleges may try to reduce their staff strength. “Many faculty members from mechanical engineering departments are now seeking jobs in the industry and many are even willing to take trainee-level jobs,” said a professor, requesting anonymity.

Despite all this, some colleges said they were able to fill more than 90% seats in mechanical and other core courses this year. “We need to understand the requirements of the industry and train students. Even IT majors hire mechanical engineers with certificate programmes like project lifecycle management (PLM) software,” said RM Kishore, vicechairman, RMK Engineering College. He added that students must be ready to learn interdisciplinary areas and emerging areas to keep up with changing requirements.

Industry experts said there was a mismatch between what students learn and the skills that the industry requires. “Mechanical engineering course was not updated while the industry underwent a lot of changes. It is one of the main reasons for poor job opportunities,” said V Thiagarajan, retired general manager (TQM and Six Sigma), WABCO India. “Several new concepts like lean manufacturing for loss elimination, single minute exchange of die (SMED are being followed by the industry. But, these concepts are not being taught.”

He added that students must be introduced to electronics and be updated with technology like the Internet of Things (IoT).