Chennai: Despite the award of scholarships and direct admission to the Ph.D programme, not many seem to have taken up the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) for an M.Tech seat this year. According to statistics provided by IIT-Madras, there is a drastic fall in the number of candidates registered to take up the exam this year.
According to the data provided by IIT-M’s GATE office, last year 2.4 lakh students from IIT-Madras zone (Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, parts of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh) had registered to take up the exam whereas this year the number has come down to 1.8 lakh.
Asked about the trend, former deputy director and professor emeritus at IIT-M V.G. Idichandy said that the numbers reflected that those preferring engineering had reduced.
“I am surprised by looking at the trend, we need to wait and see how it turns out in future,” he said. N.V.Krishnan, an engineering graduate, was of the opinion that several students either took up jobs or looked at management studies as a career option as they found it difficult to crack GATE.
“To crack GATE one needs to put in a great deal of effort, besides going for coaching. “Do you think an IITian who spent the most part of his school days studying to get into IIT will again get into coaching,” he said.
Aakaash, another student, pointed out that several students got placed in the course of the campus placement process. “The placement scenario looks gloomy right now and students don’t want to miss the job they get. Hence, very few have aspired to go in for higher studies this year, and this reflects in the number of GATE aspirants,” he said.
