Chennai: The first ever online counselling for engineering courses emerged as a successful as more than 75 per cent of students got the allotment within their first three choices.
To avoid the unnecessary travel of the students and their parents, the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) committee has introduced online engineering counselling.
After five rounds, the TNEA has filled 72,648 seats and 97,890 seats are lying vacant. “Since it was the first time we have come up with the system to accommodate both rural and urban students,” said V.Rhymend Uthariaraj, secretary, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions.
But, students have surprised the officials by exercising better choices in the online counselling. “More than 75 per cent of the candidates got the allotment within their first three choices and over 50 per cent got their first choice in the engineering counselling,” he said.
But, the use of TNEA Facilitation Centres (TFCs) has to be improved as only 25 per cent of students alone used these centres during the online counselling. TNEA has set up 42 facilitation centres across the state to help the students.
Pointing out the vacant seats at government and government-aided colleges after the counselling, the students and teachers have demanded second and third phase counselling to fill the vacant seats.
“It would ensure that there are no seats are wasted in the university and government engineering colleges,” they argued. When asked, Mr. Rhymend Uthariaraj said that the TNEA will consider conducting second phase counselling positively after consulting with the government from next academic year.
R.M. Kishore, Vice-Chairman, RMK Engineering College, said, “The top 19 engineering colleges were able to fill more than 90 per cent of their intake. The trend shows that a majority of the students have chosen the colleges based on the alumni feedback.”
“Anna University and higher education department have conducted the first ever online engineering counselling very smoothly,” he added.
Meanwhile, several engineering colleges including the colleges with good facilities also could not fill their seats during the counselling.
“There is a need to upgrade the current engineering syllabus to improve the quality. The engineering colleges need to be given more autonomy to have tie-ups with the nearby industries to train the engineering graduates,” he suggested.
A trustee of engineering college near Chennai urged the Anna University to conduct the engineering counselling along with the admissions to the arts and science courses.
“By the time when engineering counselling starts, many students are already admitted to the arts and science courses. Along with the quality, it is one of the main reasons for the decline in engineering admissions. The university should advance the engineering counselling to boost the engineering admissions,” he suggested.
S.A. Engineering College principal P.K. Nagaraj said many colleges which had not attracted any student in first three rounds were able to get the students during the fourth and fifth rounds.
“If the students have entered the choices they wouldn’t have given the priority to these colleges and good colleges might have got more admissions in the online engineering counselling,” he said.
There were allegations that the private engineering colleges were luring the students by opening unauthorized facilitation centres. Some students and parents even alleged that they were received calls offering free seats and gifts.
Further, the principals of engineering colleges also wondered on how the engineering colleges which had admissions in single digits would be able to run the courses. "The students' future is ruined and these colleges cannot afford to hire the faculty members. Anna University should intervene and save the students who were got admitted to these colleges," they demanded.
“Many of the colleges which do not find takers are of the low quality with no qualified teachers and labs. Their pass percentage also very low and the students are able to see their previous performance. So, they avoided these engineering colleges,” said M.Ananthakrishnan, former Vice-Chancellor, Anna University.
“These engineering colleges will not be able to improve the standard with additional faculty members and infrastructure. So, the Anna University and AICTE should come forward to disaffiliate the engineering colleges which had no takers. They should not be allowed to participate in the counselling year after year,” he suggested.
