As many as 80,689 government quota engineering seats in Tamil Nadu have gone vacant this year. And, colleges will have to pay — it will hit the quality of the education they provide and, in some cases, cause heavy financial losses to the institutions.

Of the 2.05 lakh seats made available through the single window counselling process, which ended on Friday, only 1.24 lakh were filled. Experts said the economic slowdown had impacted engineering education to a large extent: students were making informed decisions and were willing to risk signing up for alternate courses.

District-wise data shows students believe that if it has to be engineering, it has to be in Chennai or nearby places. "Engineering has not lost its charm," said S Vaidhyasubramaniam, dean, planning and development, Sastra University, Thanjavur. "Students are only rejecting engineering education in a bad institution."



Close to 96% of seats in the seven Chennai colleges have been filled, while it is 68% for Kancheepuram and 73.44% for Tiruvallur. Colleges in Virudhunagar, which steadily churns out school toppers, have also been able to fill a good number of seats. The rate of seat allocation in 12 colleges there crossed 76%.

One reason is that the district is home to topnotch institutions like Mepco Schlenk Engineering College. "This keeps other colleges in the region on their toes to face the competition," said an 8expert.

Ariyalur, on the other hand, had the lowest rate of seats allocated. Five colleges in the district have been able to fill only 33% of seats.
When a college fails to fill even 10% of seats, as is the case with some institutions, it has far-reaching consequences. "They cannot offer sustainable quality education," said Vaidhyasubramaniam.

When rural colleges fail to fill more than 10% or 20% of seats, it will have a strong bearing on the rural economy, says C Thangaraj, former vice-chancellor of Anna University of Technology, Chennai. "The government should have insisted on quality maintenance on colleges, and encouraged edupreneurs to start engineering colleges in rural areas," he added.

The All India Council for Technical Education mandates that colleges seeking approval must have facilities commensurate with their intake and not with the number of seats filled. This means that the financial position of colleges, many of which are funded by banks, will already be in the negative. "Those without strong industry backing or without good investments will be forced to approach bigger players for a takeover," said S Alfred Devaparasad, CEO of Alpha Group of Institutions.

Those who don't come in for outright sale will try to cut losses by compromising on faculty salary and additional inputs. Devaprasad believes colleges that know that the trend will change in a few years are likely to keep investing - in faculty, infrastructure and R&D.

Source : TOI