Job, Higher Edu Limitations Mean Courses See Few Takers

Job, Higher Edu Limitations Mean Courses See Few Takers

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai:18.04.2021

A survey carried out by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) among undergraduate engineering students on regional language preference shows that a majority of students are interested in Tamil as course language.

According to AICTE, 83,195 undergraduate students took part in the online survey titled as “Undergraduate Engineering Education in Mother Tongue.” Among them, 12,487 students said they would choose to study engineering in their mother tongue Tamil if given to the option. Hindi (7,818), Telugu (3,991) and Marathi (3,226) came next. As many as 1,953 students have answered, not sure. The survey included participants with 22 mother tongues.

The ministry of education has given emphasis to provide engineering and medical studies in regional languages. The survey was to get the views of stakeholders (students) on the matter.

The state introduced Tamil BE Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in 2010.

While the survey findings portray Tamil medium as the popular pick among the group, experts find it very surprising as the two Tamilmedium courses have hardly any takers.

“If true, there should have been a big craze to opt for Tamil-medium courses. Even at College of Engineering, Guindy, seats in the Tamil medium courses are the last ones to be filled. The gap in cut-off for Tamil medium and other students is also huge. It is an indicator that students do not prefer Tamil-medium courses,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi.

“Those who picked Tamil medium are struggling in campus recruitment. They are also not able to go for higher education as the GATE is conducted only in English,” he added.

As many as 17 colleges — College of Engineering (CEG) and 16 constituent colleges of Anna University — have around 1,500 Tamil-medium seats across the two streams.

“The Tamil-medium courses are a failure as the state government could not provide the students books and journals in Tamil. Due to lack of jobs and higher education opportunities, the colleges filled less than 30% seats these past few years. Seats in CEG are filled every year, but that has nothing to do with Tamil medium,” a professor from Anna University said.

A dean of constituent college said some colleges could not fill even a single Tamil medium course seat.

“Tamil BE courses are not successful as text books, resources are not available in Tamil,” said B Chidambararajan, principal of SRM Valliammai College in Chennai.

While the AICTE allowed colleges to start a course in regional language from 2021-22, few TN institutions applied.