JOIN USLack of placements: 30% seats in Karnataka govt engg colleges go abegging
Seats in government engineering colleges have gone abegging this year.
The recently concluded seat allotment for undergraduate engineering courses for the academic year 2022-23 shows that at least 30% of the seats in government colleges are left unfilled.
As per data available from the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), a total of 5,433 seats were available in 19 government engineering colleges initially.
After all rounds of counselling, 1,793 seats have now remained vacant. The seats having no takers includes those in University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), Bengaluru, one of the most sought after government engineering colleges.
Though the Karnataka Examinations Authority had allotted 4,036 seats in government colleges, only 3,640 candidates took admissions.
As many as 37 seats from various streams were unfilled at UVCE, highest in mechanical with 14. Civil came second with 13. The situation is no different in other government-run institutions.
Courses like computer science, electronics, electrical and information science are considered to be in demand. But, some government colleges failed to attract students even for these courses.
For example, government engineering college in Gangavathi has 18 seats vacant in the computer science stream, of the total intake of 63.
According to experts, one of the main reasons for students not preferring government colleges is lack of placement opportunities.
“While choosing a seat, one of the priorities for students and parents is placements and government colleges are lagging in placing students through campus recruitment,” said Prof Karisiddappa, former vice chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU).
He said placements will improve in these colleges in course of time, with the government upgrading the government engineering colleges as Karnataka Institutes of Technology (KITs). In the first phase, six colleges have been identified for upgrading.