There’s trouble ahead for private self-financing engineering colleges in the state.
With demand falling, nearly 10,000 engineering seats are expected to have no takers this year, up from the nearly 8000 seats that remained vacant last year.
Except for Mechanical, Civil and Electronics and Communication, there is little demand for other branches.
The worst hit are Advanced Electronics, Electrical, Information Technology and Computer Science courses, with at least 25 per cent of seats in each of them remaining vacant in most colleges, say official sources.
The association of SF engineering colleges confirms this dismal state of affairs.
The situation is expected to worsen this year on account of the adverse remarks passed by the High Court against under-performing engineering colleges.
Only 75 per cent of seats in the 16 colleges targeted have been filled so far, according to KSFECMA sources.
The colleges in question figure in the list drawn up by the DTE based on data of three years provided
by the universities concerned.
Put off by the poor pass percentage of engineering colleges, students seem to be giving their courses a miss and flocking instead to conventional degree courses.
Experts, however believe that the pass percentage of 40 stipulated for a college to get a decent rating is unrealistic.
“Many well performing colleges had limited branches earlier and got the cream of students for them. One college even outdid the Trivandrum engineering college in results.
They are getting the cream of students even now on the strength of their past results,” said an office-bearer of KSFECMA, which has also objected to the deadline for engineering allotment being extended to August 21, afraid that this could hit management seats again.