Migration to engineering colleges dips

College administrators attribute this to the recent increase in fees for BE or B.Tech courses and lack of employment for engineers as the main reasons for the new trend.

Even as counselling for over 500 engineering colleges got over on August 18 and 55,000 seats went vacant, students from arts and science colleges were reluctant to move to engineering.

Prof S. Narasimhan, principal of D.G. Vaishnav College, Arumbakkam, said that 10 out of 50 students who joined courses like B.Sc. (Physics), B.Sc. (Chemistry), B.Sc. (Mathematics) and B.Sc. (Computer Science) usually shifted to engineering colleges two months after joining these courses.

“Every year we have this exodus but this year surprisingly we have had no such instance. This shows the students’ interest in arts and science courses.

Engineering College Chennai

We will not be surprised if more students join arts colleges next year as engineering courses have started to lose their sheen,” he said.

Engineering Industry

Attributing campus placement as one of the important reasons for the freeze in migration, Prof. Narasimhan said that several top IT companies had started to recruit students from Science streams like B.Sc. (Physics), B.Sc. (Mathematics) and B.Sc. (Computer Science), which had attracted lot of students towards Arts and Science colleges.

Prof C. Pichandy, general secretary of association of university teachers said that less than one per cent of the students from arts and science colleges had shifted this time.