50 per cent seats vacant in self-financing engineering colleges in Kerala
KOCHI: The second round of allotment to the engineering courses in the state by the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations has revealed where the engineering colleges in the state, especially the self-financing engineering colleges, stand with one among them drawing a blank with no student opting for any of the four courses offered by it.
The Sree Ernakulathappan College of Engineering and Management, Mukundapuram, Thrissur, has become the first victim of the demand-supply mismatch in the sector ever since the launch of the self-financing sector one-and-a-half decades ago.
Despite offering 33 seats each in Civil Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics and Communication and Electrical and Electronics Engineering, there are no takers in the second allotment as well, bringing it to the brink of closure.
The private self-financing colleges, except a handful of well-established, are struggling to get students even in government quota forcing the colleges to secretly reduce the fees in the management quota to unbelievable levels of Rs 5000 a year, according to sources in the sector.
After the second allotment nearly 50 percent government quota seats in the private self-financing colleges are vacant.
According to officials in the office of the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations, out of a total of 25,760 seats available in private self-financing colleges, a total of 12,387 remain vacant after the second allotment. In the government self-financing engineering colleges, out of a total of 6,532 available seats, 658 remain unfilled. In the government engineering colleges, the number of vacant seats is five out of the available seats of 4,947.
This year’s allotment figures show even some of the well-established private self-financing colleges struggling to get students in some branches with the vacancy level going above 75 percent. Branch-wise, Electronics and Communication Engineering which was much in demand in previous years, suffered a severe beating this year with 3, 773 seats falling vacant out of a total of 7,786 seats in all types of colleges (govt, govt SF, private SF).
Mechanical engineering has the highest demand with 5,506 students getting allotment out of the available seats of 6,739 with 1,233 seats falling vacant. “Even top branches do not have takers in weak colleges and they face closure threat,” said an official.
