230 Colleges Fill Less Than 30% Seats After Counselling

Eleven government and two private colleges filled all their seats while 16 private colleges could not get a single student this year after four rounds of online counselling conducted by the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee. And 54% seats in 479 colleges remain vacant.

Like previous years, 230 colleges filled less than 30% of seats. Of 1,67,101 seats available for counselling, 76,364 were filled.

“More than 200 colleges could not fill 30% of seats in the past four years. If the trend continues, the colleges could lose 50% of seats,” said career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi. If colleges have less than 30% admissions for five consecutive years, AICTE cuts seats by 50%.

Computer science and civil engineering emerged as most and least preferred streams while mechanical engineering saw a huge drop in demand, with only 36% of seats filled. Colleges in Chennai and Coimbatore regions got more students. As many as 1,519 students from previous rounds participated in the fourth round due to improper choice filling.

In a curious case, 30,702 seats were filled in the fourth and final round (cut-off 114.75 to 77.5), registering the maximum enrolment in four rounds.

Experts said the changes in post-matric scholarship to SC students increased the allotments in fourth round. “Now, only students admitted through counselling can claim reimbursement. So students who joined colleges under management quota have shifted to government quota,” the principal of a city college said.

“But more than 85% of the students in the fourth round have got their first choices. Private colleges may have filled the choices on behalf of the students,” Jayaprakash Gandhi said.

“Due to poor results and tough question papers, the students preferred autonomous colleges to affiliated colleges,” a principal from Trichy said.

TNEA began supplementary counselling for students who did not apply for the counselling and have cleared instant exams on Sunday and will wrap it on July 30.

To read the full article, please visit: The Times of India (Chennai) dated 29 July, 2019