The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : 10,000 seats may be vacant

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

10,000 seats may be vacant

K. Ramachandran

About 16,607 engineering seats remained vacant on Sunday evening 16,607 engineering seats go begging on Sunday

CHENNAI: With just about a week to go before the single window counselling for Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) 2005 ends, the prospect of 9,000 to 10,000 seats remaining vacant in the Government quota looms large before the unaided colleges.

In the last two or three days, the TNEA authorities have been calling 3,200 students each day the counselling, but only 40 per cent selected a seat. The rest, either did not turn up or went away, without selecting a seat in the available pool.

In the first three weeks of counselling till August 21, 44,400 students were called for the counselling and only 25,868 seats have been filled. Another 16,607 seats remained vacant by Sunday evening, and if the trend continues, about 10,000 seats are likely to remain vacant, university counsellors agree.

The student choices also indicate that most of the vacancies will be in the core branches such as Mechanical, Civil, Electrical and Electronics engineering and a smaller number in the more preferred one such as Electronics and Communication Engineering, Computer Sciences and Engineering and Information Technology.

Circuit branches

With most of the recruiters, who take freshers on board their companies, preferring candidates from the `circuit' (pertaining to electronics, computers or IT) branches, there has indeed been a blind rush for these seats, even in the colleges that do not enjoy a good academic record.

Of the allotted seats, 19,788 seats have gone to the circuit branches, i.e 76.5 per cent. Last year, the figure was 69 per cent at the end of the third week of counselling, says educational analyst, Jayaprakash Gandhi of Salem.

New courses

In 18 branches all seats have been filled, but they have less than 100 seats each in the entire State. "But strangely, all the three new courses in Chemical Technology — specialisations in fertilizer, paper and pulp, and cement, have received poor response, with hardly a few takers... " he notes, but adds that the other new courses such as Petroleum refining or petrochemical introduces in A.C Tech, Chennai, have had good response.

Of the 68 colleges offering civil engineering, 32 colleges are yet to fill even one seat. Similarly, the candidates have not taken a single seat of mechanical branch in 40 (out of 155) colleges, and EEE branch in 45 colleges.

Till Sunday evening, nine colleges had not opened their account at all.

Pointing to the contention of placement officers that only those with a cut off of over 240 or 245 are getting placement, Mr. Gandhi says, there is no case now for reducing the eligibility, as students with lesser marks will not be able to get placement at all. Also, thousands of students are in the 4th year of engineering now with more than three or four subject arrears. These students will find it tough and may not complete engineering at all, causing social problems later.

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