Thousands of seats vacant in Tamil Nadu's self-financing engineering colleges

In an alarming indication of the turbulent state of affairs in Tamil Nadu's self-financing engineering colleges, it has emerged that more than 51,000 BE/B.Tech seats are lying vacant for want of students in the current academic year.

This figure is a significant and unparalleled 31% of the 1,65,980 seats, (including a few BArch seats), that were available in the 440 engineering colleges both under government and management quotas.

Latest admission statistics in engineering colleges compiled by officials of the higher education ministry revealed that only 1,14,518 seats were filled up during the admission season that started in July (government quota) and ended in October (management quota).

A copy of the statistical report sourced by The Times of India shows that three engineering colleges and one architecture institution (Ranganathan Architecture College in Coimbatore) had failed to attract even a single student.

Interestingly all three engineering colleges were exclusive women's institutions the Chennai Institute of Science and Technology for Women in Chengalpet; The Selvam Women Excellence Engineering Technology College in Trichy; and the St John's College of Engineering and Technology for Women in Vellore.

"Such a huge vacancy in engineering colleges is unparalleled in the history of technical education in Tamil Nadu. Although over 70 new private engineering colleges were established last year, presumably to address the demand from students, nearly one-third of the seats could not be filled as students had stayed off. In contrast, if you look at the admission figures for the previous academic year 2008-09, as many as 1,18,565 of the 1,31,680 seats available were filled in the 344 engineering colleges that were functioning then. The percentage of vacant seats worked out to less than 10% last academic year," a higher education ministry official pointed out.

Similarly, during 2007-08, of the 1,09,784 available seats colleges had managed to find students for 94,346 seats, which meant that only around 14% of the seats remained vacant.

"Less than half-a-dozen of the engineering colleges in the state were able to attract students for the entire sanctioned student intake strength in the current academic year. While several institutions admitted students in double digits against an individual sanctioned students' strength ranging from 240 to 300, less than 10 students were admitted in three private colleges," the official added.

Academics felt that the figures reflected two aspects one, that parents and students did not have faith in the quality of education provided in many private institutions and second they stayed away due to prohibitive costs of engineering education.