Colleges fear student count drop

Bhubaneswar: Private engineering colleges in the state fear that the number of aspirants for the courses they offer may go down further this year because of delayed exams and the poor job scenario.
Last year, only 12,397 seats out of a total of 33,967 were filled up, leaving more than 60% of the seats vacant in these colleges.
In fact, the private colleges have been seeing a steep decline in admissions to BTech courses for the last seven years.
On an average, more than 60% seats are lying vacant since 2015, according to the Odisha Private Engineering College Association (OPECA).
Sources said students are not interested in studying engineering because of a sluggish job market. Odisha has more seats than the prospective students.
Some students go outside the state to pursue their technical education, while some prefer private universities or deemed-to-be universities for technical education. Another problem is the delayed exam and admission process.
Apart from this, students usually opt for BTech in computer science, mechanical, electrical and civil engineering.
The seats for courses such as B Tech in instrumentation, electronics and metallurgy have been decreased because of a lack of demand.
Binod Dash of OPECA said, “Such large-scale vacancies for such a long period is definitely a matter of serious concern.”
He added that the OPECA had requested the state government to come up with proper guidelines for filling up the vacant seats last year.
“Since the online application process for OJEE-2022 will end soon, we once again appeal to the government to come up with guidelines from the beginning of the admission process. In such a scenario, we will not have to take any legal assistance and the admission process can be completed smoothly and within the given time-frame,” Dash said.
The OPECA has suggested to the Odisha government that the remaining vacant seats should be transferred to the colleges following two rounds of counselling process by the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE).
Private colleges should be allowed to fill up their seats on the basis of the qualifying examination marks through college-level counselling, instead of conducting special OJEE for BTech first year, Dash said.