Bengaluru: Engineering losing sheen for students? Admissions see big dip

Bengaluru: Engineering courses are losing sheen among students. In shocking data, released after admissions to undergraduate engineering courses for 2018-19 concluded in the state, over 62% of seats under the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental colleges of Karnataka (Comed-K) have remained unfilled. Also, over 32 per cent of seats counselled by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) are vacant.

The Comed-K data, released after the conclusion of admissions recently, revealed that as many as 10,175 seats out of 16,236 under their quota have not been filled. Under KEA, over 21,000 seats out of 64,000 have had no takers.

Comed-K representatives and educationists said that they have been noticing the trend for the last few years now. "This is also because of inadequate infrastructure at these institutes," an official pointed out.

Dr S. Kumar, Executive Secretary, Comed-K, said, "This is being observed for the last eight years."

Another official said that the condition of the colleges is to blame for the changing trend. Students are smart and don't get fooled by advertisements and tall claims. It is time for engineering colleges to rebuild infrastructure and provide quality education, he said.

Registrar of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) Jagannatha Reddy said that such numbers are getting bigger every year. "It is left for the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to decide whether to close down colleges that don't have any admission and low admissions," he said. The university's local inquiry committee will take suitable action after conducting inspections and inquiries, he said.