KOCHI: Even as the campus placement season picks up, the School of Engineering (SoE) which is the hub for the same at Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), is said to be not able to respond effectively after a change of guard at its placement cell. Assistant professor Premkumar C. V., who was in charge of placement for three years until last month, vacated the position and in his place came assistant professor Dr James Varghese.
In another development, Dr G Madhu had demitted office as principal of SoE in July in whose place Dr M.R. Radhakrishna Panicker came. Sources said that these changes are reflecting in the slow pace of campus recruitments. “Mr Premkumar was well experienced and was in perfect command so far. Now there are no officials in the placement cell even to attend enquiry calls from companies which are being redirected to the main office of Cusat,” sources said.
The recent ragging and other violent incidents too have sullied the image of the SoE even outside. When contacted, Mr James Varghese said the campus recruitment was gathering pace and already four companies had recruited students while three more have lined up immediately.
“TCS has recruited 107 students while TCS Digital has taken four. Another firm Cyberage has absorbed eight candidates while Oracle Finance has placed another eight. Two companies are lined up for this week while one more is to come next week. Overall dullness in the industry is reflected in the recruitment now which usually starts after Onam. The recruitment will extend up to February and March, and more companies will come,” said Dr James Varghese.
He said prior to the tenure of Mr Premkumar, both of them together were handling placement. “So the allegation of lack of experience is not true. The allegation of not attending calls from recruiters also is not true, though there is only a temporary staff at the cell. We are moving to have a full-timer soon,” he said.
