Kerala: 1st year engineering classes to begin on November 22

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: First year engineering degree offline classes in colleges affiliated to APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University will begin on November 22.
On the first day, students are expected to get acquainted with their college campuses and those who seek admission in hostels should complete procedures on that day.
The university and colleges will host introductory orientation sessions for first year BTech students from Nov 23-27. While university's sessions would be held online, the same for colleges would be held offline. Meanwhile, the centralized seat allotment procedure for engineering degree courses entered the final phase. The last date for candidates to submit options for third allotment elapsed on Monday.
A clear picture of admission patterns this year will be available only when the third allotment list is published on Tuesday. However, field information from self-financing engineering colleges indicate a grim picture in terms of admissions in private colleges. Representatives of self-financing college management said a large number of seats, especially in traditional branches such as electronics, electrical and mechanical, remain vacant in most colleges.
"All students need admission in computer science branch. I don't know what really works behind this fad. Students are not interested in learning in traditional engineering branches that have the potential to make them capable of exploring employment opportunities in a wide variety of industries, including IT," said K Sasikumar, former president of Kerala Self-financing Engineering College Association. He added that many students have already taken admission in engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, causing another heavy blow to private engineering colleges.
In view of the delay in publishing the entrance rank list as a result of the delay in the conduct of Plus Two exams by national boards, the government has extended by a month the last date for completing the procedure for engineering admission. AICTE too has given consent for the same, considering various factors that delayed admissions at the national level. As per the original schedule, engineering admissions were to be completed by Oct 25.
First year classes for BArch, BHMCT and BDes would also start on Nov 22. Classes for the new batch of MTech, MPlan and MArch programmes will begin on Nov 15, the university said.