Few takers for second year engineering seats in Maharashtra Posted On: Thursday, September 08, 2011

Updated on: Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Not only will seats in the first year engineering courses go vacant, there are fewer takers for the second year too. This year, merely 45,000 diploma graduates evinced interest in joining the degree course in contrast to the 58,000 seats available for them.

Engineering colleges across the country set aside 20% of their seats and allow direct entry into the second year to students who have completed a diploma course. This lateral entry scheme is meant to push students to take up a professional course and upgrade their diploma to a full-time degree programme.

The admission process ends on September 24, but the dearth in the applications received has worried the government. In fact, this year, even students who completed their bachelors in science were allowed to the second year of engineering colleges. However, data from the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), which conducts admission across Maharashtra, shows that merely 183 such candidates signed up for a second undergraduate degree.

The scenario is similar in the pharmacy course where 2,500 candidates have applied for the 5,000 seats up for grabs despite the country’s apex body for professional education, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), lowering the eligibility criteria for professional courses.

“Seats in professional technical colleges across India are going vacant. We feel that state governments and the AICTE must take a policy decision on this issue,” said DTE director S Mahajan. In case of the admission to the first year engineering programme, colleges in Pune have witnessed the largest number of seats going vacant—11,492, followed by Nagpur where 8,355 seats went abegging. Across Maharashtra, nearly 34,000 seats are vacant; admissions will take place at the individual institute level.

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