Higher Education
Colleges in South India
Educational News Today
Monday, May 17, 2010
Chennai: The aspirations to join an engineering college are at an all-time high among students in Tamil Nadu. Surpassing previous records, 1,73,779 applications have been sold for the 2010 edition of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) as of Saturday. The number is 15,643 more than the applications sold last year and there is still nearly a fortnight to go for the last date for purchasing the forms.
With higher education minister K Ponmudy strongly indicating that the eligibility marks for admission into BE/BTech courses could be lowered this year, the demand for engineering colleges is expected to rise further. Also this year the state has recorded the highest overall pass percentage in the State Board class XII public examinations in this decade.
Analysts feel that there could be a complete turnaround in the engineering admission scenario. “Last year, self-financing engineering colleges suffered a major setback when more than 51,000 BE/BTech seats remained vacant in both government and management quotas.
It was a shock as only 1,20,074 students were enrolled against the previous year (2008) when 1,22,931 seats were filled. We must not forget that this decline was witnessed when the number of colleges had gone up from 355 in 2008 to 456 in 2009,” pointed out an analyst.
In fact, 2009 was the only time in the past five years when engineering admissions had registered a negative growth despite increase in the number of colleges. “The number of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu was only 237 in 2005-06 and went up to 456 in 2009-10.
The number of students admitted in these colleges had been consistently on the rise from 67,836 in 2005-06 to 1,22,931 in 2008-09. However, last year alone this growth trend was reversed,” he added. With at least 50 applications for establishing new private engineering colleges pending clearance from the All India Council for Engineering Admission the number of seats available would go up by another 12,000 taking the figure to beyond 1.80 lakh. Therefore, students can be rest assured of a seat under the government quota itself.
Engineering aspirants buy a record 1.73 lakh applications
Analysts feel that there could be a complete turnaround in the engineering admission scenario. “Last year, self-financing engineering colleges suffered a major setback when more than 51,000 BE/BTech seats remained vacant in both government and management quotas.
It was a shock as only 1,20,074 students were enrolled against the previous year (2008) when 1,22,931 seats were filled. We must not forget that this decline was witnessed when the number of colleges had gone up from 355 in 2008 to 456 in 2009,” pointed out an analyst.
In fact, 2009 was the only time in the past five years when engineering admissions had registered a negative growth despite increase in the number of colleges. “The number of engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu was only 237 in 2005-06 and went up to 456 in 2009-10.
The number of students admitted in these colleges had been consistently on the rise from 67,836 in 2005-06 to 1,22,931 in 2008-09. However, last year alone this growth trend was reversed,” he added. With at least 50 applications for establishing new private engineering colleges pending clearance from the All India Council for Engineering Admission the number of seats available would go up by another 12,000 taking the figure to beyond 1.80 lakh. Therefore, students can be rest assured of a seat under the government quota itself.
Courtesy: Times of India
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