With the Round 3 of Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions (TNEA) counselling coming to an end, the data released by the TNEA showed the number of seats allotted to students this year went up by around 13% compared to last year. Despite this increase, over one-third of the available seats were still lying vacant.
An analysis of branch-wise data indicated that the increase in uptake was driven to a considerable extent by the demand for artificial intelligence and related courses among students.
Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (AD) branch ranked fourth, only next to Computer Science and Engineering (CS), Electronics and Communication Engineering (EC) and Information Technology (IT), in terms of the number of seats opted by the students. The branch accounted for 10% of the total seats taken by the students, a significant increase compared to two years when it accounted for less than half of this year’s uptake.
According to the brochure released by TNEA regarding the engineering colleges in the State, more than 270 colleges were offering the AD course this year. In 2020, the number of colleges offering this course was only around 70.
Analyst Jayaprakash Gandhi said the interest in artificial intelligence and related technologies and increase in placements for these courses were certainly driving up the number of takers for engineering seats this year. With the artificial intelligence landscape changing rapidly, he, however, stressed that the students should really be skilled to land good jobs once they finished their courses.
With a sharp increase in the number of colleges offering AD course, he also stressed on the need for caution on the quality of teaching staff available in these colleges to teach the course, which was evolving every day. It may be a better option to take CS branch and study artificial intelligence as one of the courses. “We should note that some of the premiere institutions like College of Engineering, Guindy, are not offering AD as a separate branch,” he said.
Concern over colleges
According to an analysis done by Mr. Gandhi, 61 of the 442 colleges that participated in the counselling had filled less than 10% of their sanctioned seats. He said this was a real concern as students who opted for these colleges would be affected. There was a need for Anna University to work with these colleges to safeguard the interests of these students.
With only supplementary counselling and counselling for seats not taken under the Scheduled Castes (Arunthathiyars) reservation category pending, a senior official from TNEA said it was unlikely that more seats from these colleges would be taken by students.
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