Staggering 51K seats vacant in TN engg colleges

The time is surely not going favourable for many self-financing engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu. In a shocking revelation, it has come out that 51,000 BE/B.Tech seats could not be filled this academic year due to lack of students. This latest revelation is surely an upsetting indication of the tumultuous state of affairs for education in Tamil Nadu.
 
The numbers are indicative of the vacant seats of the 440 engineering colleges both under government and management quotas. Startlingly, the figure has been assumed to 31 percent of the 1, 65,980 seats in the state.

As per the available stats, only 1, 14,518 seats could be filled up during the admission season kicked off in July. Even after filling up with the government quota and closing on the admission in October under management quota, the number could not improve further.

More bizarre news has come out from three engineering colleges and one architecture institution (Ranganathan Architecture College in Coimbatore) where not a single student turned up to get admission. All three engineering colleges with not a single student were exclusive women's institutions.

A higher education ministry official has found the current situation   unparalleled in the history of technical education in Tamil Nadu. The minister was also bemused by this startling fact and informed that even over 70 new private engineering colleges could not attract the students. He also informed that the percentage of vacant seats was close to 10% last academic year.
 
Despite the attempts by the government, the students did not show inclination to seek admission. If experts and academics are to be believed, then lack of quality of education provided in many private institutions and exorbitant costs of engineering education has forced students and parents to stay out of this year’s engineering process.