Record number of students take govt quota engineering seats in Tamil Nadu

Academics have predicted that at least 50,000 engineering seats in the government quota are likely to go vacant in 2012. They will probably be spot on, but more students are opting for government quota seats this year than ever before.

Officials in charge of the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions said that they expect 1.25 lakh seats to be filled through the single window counselling system this year, the most since the process was introduced in 1997.

Till Friday, 1,17,507 candidates were allotted seats through the government quota, compared to 1.04 lakh students in 2011 and 1.1 lakh students in 2010.

Higher education experts said the large number was not a pointer to a sudden surge in demand for engineering seats. "It is just that more students have more confidence in single window counselling. There is greater awareness of the benefits of securing admission through the system," said professor Rhymend Uthariaraj, secretary of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA).

Many students opted for admission through single window counselling because the tuition fee for those opting for management seats was much higher than the fee that students have to pay if they take government quota seats. The tuition fee students who take a non-accredited BE or BTech government quota seat is set at 40,000, while an accredited course costs 45,000 under the government quota. The tuition fee of a management course has been set at 70,000.

Another reason why students are choosing government quota seats is that banks are refusing to offer education loans to students for management seats. Students said from this year banks have started to demand proof that the student has opted for a government quota seat.

Many students hope to be able to pay for their course through an education loan, said education consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi. "They have been forced to opt for a government quota seat even if the college is not their first choice," he said. But students still have a choice of colleges.

"Many groups have three or five colleges and between 500 and 1,500 vacant seats," Gandhi said. "Quality matters and students are making more informed choices."

More than 50% of the students who applied to take part in the single window counselling system were first generation graduates, for whom the government had ordered full tuition fee waiver.

Academics expect 1.25 lakh seats to be filled by August 22, when the month-long engineering counselling ends on Saturday. After that the TNEA will conduct phase 2 of the vocational counselling on August 19 and 20. This will be followed by supplementary counselling on August 21 for candidates who failed the Class 12 exam, wrote the supplementary exam and are eligible to take part in the counselling process. The counselling will close on August 22 when SC students will be allowed to take up unfilled seats reserved for SC Arunthathiar students.