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What's ailing engineering education?- 29-Jul-2015
Of the over 1,93,000 engineering seats that were made available through the TNEA single-window counselling, only 1,01,620 were taken! What are the problems that have led to such low seat allotment numbers? What's ailing engineering education in Tamil Nadu in toto? What are the possible remedies? This article tries to answer these critical questions.
It may be noted that, the seats offered through this general counselling procedure overseen by the Anna University are under Government Quota, which means the amount of fees that a candidate needs to shell out will be much lesser compared to the seats offered under the Management Quota. Yet, why these TNEA seats go vacant? Well, it turns out to be a million-dollar question!
But numbers don't lie! When over 1,93,000 seats were up for grabs through the single-window counselling system, only 1,48,794 students were found eligible to take up the counselling sessions!
Given the density of Indian population, ideally, the number of students applying should far exceed the number of seats available. But why is it vice-versa here? Why did the TNEA fail to find adequate number of candidates in Tamil Nadu? Is it the dearth of students or did the number of colleges and seats available exceed the demand? Over 91,000 seats that were offered through the TNEA counselling and remain untaken will now go to the management quota. Chances are high that these and some more seats will remain vacant.
Last year, over 1.3 lakh engineering seats remained vacant and some of the courses were cut down due to large number of vacancies. Despite all that, this year, such huge numbers of vacancies are reported. One can be certain that, if such a trend is allowed to continue, engineering education could further deteriorate in Tamil Nadu, as it is already losing its steam. Remedial measures need to be taken at the earliest.
One could possibly be to encourage more students to take up the entrance test that would lead them to the engineering counselling. This year, only 1,73,687 applications were received. In Tamil Nadu, the number of engineering colleges is estimated to be over 490 and the number of seats over 2,35,000. In comparison, around nine lakh students appeared for the Class 12 exams this year, and of them, 90 percent cleared the test. Above 5 lakh students scored above 60%.
TNEA's general counselling came to a close on Tuesday, and of the 1,48,794 students who were called for the counselling, 46,571 did not even turn up. Another 603 who did turn up either did not find a suitable course or college. While all the engineering seats in government colleges were filled up, the private colleges reported 90,649 vacant seats. Even the four Anna University constituent colleges reported 824 vacant seats!
It is known that many of the newly-formed private engineering colleges lack proper infrastructure and skilled faculty and need some time to gain good grounds. These colleges also find it very hard to attract top rankers, who prefer the elite engineering institutions.
It is reported that somewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India's engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. According to multiple estimates, India trains around 15 lakh engineers, which is more than the US and China combined. It is said, however, that two key industries hiring these engineers--information technology and manufacturing--are actually hiring fewer people than before. That's why the popularity of engineering education is also on the decline. This is the state of engineering education in all the states of India.
The need of engineers is growing worldwide but the need of the hour is producing job-ready engineering graduates rather than just engineering graduates that lack employability. While the quality of engineering education needs to be propped up, the entrance examination system and the seat-allotment processes need to be popularised and streamlined to bring more to the counselling table.
