More than 1 lakh engineering seats are vacant in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Following the completion of the second round of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling, as many as 110 colleges of the total 443 were able to fill seats only in the single digits. With 30 other colleges filling no seats, academicians have expressed concern over the state of affairs, mentioning that with only a handful of students (or none) enrolled, it will be difficult for these institutions to deliver quality education.

At the end of two rounds of counselling — 17,679 seats filled in the first — only 61,082 (37.6%) seats have been filled of the total 1,62,392. The remaining 1,01,310 seats will be available for the third round which will be attended by over 93,000 students. Notably, previous trends did suggest that about 55,000-60,000 seats will remain vacant this academic year.

“Last year too, Anna University had to close down some colleges due to poor enrolment. The university needs to look into the problem as to why these colleges are facing problems in attracting students and should recommend solutions to improve the situation,” said Jayaprakash Gandhi, a career consultant.

This year, at least 197 colleges failed to fill even 10% of their seats, while only 114 colleges managed to fill more than 50%. Of these, 57 filled more than 80% of seats, while 39 colleges had 90% enrolment. Only four institutions managed to fill 100% seats: Central Electro Chemical Research Institute, MIT campus (Anna University), CEG campus (Anna University), School of Architecture and Planning (for BPlan).

Interestingly, 475 students from the first round got allotments in the second round, which is higher than the usual 200-250 from previous years.

“This shows that students in the first round had not filled their choices in properly or they were unhappy with their allotments. Students should choose their colleges wisely,” said a faculty member from Anna University.

According to sources, this year too, students are favouring courses such as Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, ECE, IT over Mechanical and Civil Engineering, whose demand seems to have fallen lower in the second round.