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| Monday, Sep 18, 2006
The malady of vacant seats in self-engineering colleges
Chennai: The Supreme Court's recent decision to allow self-engineering colleges a free hand to fill seats that have not been filled through single window counselling brings to the fore,
concerns about the quality of students such seats could attract.
Given the fact that students had, in effect, rejected these seats under the Single Window System (SWS),
will the apex court decision pave the way for a deterioration of engineering student material? What measures are needed in future to minimise the numbers of such lapsed seats?
M. Anandakrishnan, former vice-chancellor, Anna University, and chairman, Committee for Abolition of Common Entrance Test,
says even though this is a one-time exception, one can only hope that this will not become a precedent in subsequent years.
Huge numbers of lapsed seats are a deliberate rejection phenomenon. If anything, it will become worse in the coming years
if the current unsatisfactory state of teaching and learning continues.
The students and parents do not go for engineering admission without prior preparation, as was done earlier.
It has become a buyer's market where the students make informed decisions.
This is the main reason behind the large number of vacant seats. It is doubtful
if this relaxation (Supreme Court letting the colleges fill the vacant seats) will attract many more students.
The fundamental cause for this malady is the mindless expansion in the number of engineering colleges and the number of branches
and the intake capacities.
The rush from greedy persons who looked at starting of new colleges and branches as
money making ventures should have been moderated by the policy makers and regulatory authorities.
It is time the authorities woke up and froze the intake capacity and pruned the prevailing disorder.
Rejection
The main reason behind students rejecting these colleges is a woeful inadequacy in the number of teachers and their lack of competence.
The managements should prune the number of branches to match the availability of teachers, establish good performance record in fewer branches and expand later.
They should have a deliberate policy of attracting and training good faculty rather than depending on open market recruitment.
Neighbouring institutions can also enter into partnership arrangements to share their faculty resources till the crisis is overcome.
P. Satyanarayanan, vice-chancellor, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, says that the Supreme Court decision has come rather late in the day and the lapsed seats can only be filled up with low performing students.
It is a moot point whether they will be able to cope with the rigours of the engineering curriculum. Had the percentage of seats surrendered to the government pool been lesser, colleges could have filled up more seats, rather than going in for the single window system.
Right now, it is an inequitable demand-supply game and the balance should be set right.
One solution could be to allow colleges to seek more students from other States, much earlier on in the admission process.
SAT model test
An ideal solution would be to have a centralised admission test, on the SAT model, sans the single window system.
Colleges can then do their own admission based on the test scores.
This would also help students by not thrusting too many tests on them and ensure quality.
Also, the issue of a fixed fee structure for management quota seats needs to be reviewed.
Some of the colleges with lapsed seats may even be willing to charge a lesser fee than that prescribed, to fill up seats. The Government should allow institutions to fix their own fee structure, based on infrastructure needs.
Decision
Although the decision of the apex court provides an opportunity to those who failed to take the entrance test,
the chaos that may follow will offset the advantage.
This will also directly affect those who are preparing for the following academic year, says Thangam Meganathan,
chairperson, Rajalakshmi Engineering College.
While classes have started for those students who have already been admitted,
the delayed admissions will disturb the ongoing programme leading to dilution of quality.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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