Admission to polytechnic colleges has been largely abysmal this, year though a few Chennai colleges have fared relatively well.
While colleges in small towns are struggling to fill sanctioned seats, some city-based colleges have managed to receive a lot of applications. A faculty member at a city polytechnic said it received 1,000 applications for 450 seats. Earlier, it used to get over 1,500 applications.
Although job opportunities are excellent, several issues have influenced the students’ preferences, teachers say. The most recent factor is the COVID-19 pandemic. With the School Education Department declaring all students as having passed class 10, 11 and 12, many aspire to a degree programme.
To attract students government polytechnic colleges announced that no fee would be collected for the first year. Though this year the Higher Education Department decided that the criteria for admission would be class 9 marks, not many students have opted, said a faculty member.
“The All India Council for Technical Education’s academic calendar has given a deadline of October to commence classes for polytechnic and engineering students. Peer influence and the delay in admission process has adversely impacted polytechnic admissions,” the faculty member said.
At another level, the National Education Policy has not defined the role for polytechnic institutions. This has led to uncertainty about the future of polytechnic education. “It is also a social issue. With more girls joining degree programmes, they do not want to marry a person who has only a diploma qualification,” said N. Sathyan, also a faculty member.
S. Shanmugasundaram, general manager at a private firm in Tiruppur, said that trained polytechnic students were hard to come by now. “In 2006-07, we used to recruit from various colleges and there was no dearth of trained candidates. A beginner’s salary is ₹10,000 to Rs. 12,000 and within three years the candidate can expect to do well,” he said. “But we notice now that even students who studied knitting and textiles are not interested in taking up the job they are trained for. The quality of students has also fallen in recent years. Earlier, campus recruitment was a long process that began in November / December and went on for several months. Now we have stopped going for campus placements. Instead we recruit arts college students and train them,” he said.
