The Madras High Court has called for details regarding placements in engineering colleges after suspecting that most campus interviews were conducted only with the aim of boosting the image of the colleges and gaining more admissions than getting the students placed in good companies.
Passing interim orders in a related case, Justice N. Kirubakaran said: “This court cannot ignore the serious allegations of certain corrupt practices against some of the private colleges and companies and this court is of the view that a mechanism should be evolved even for conducting campus interviews for recruitment.” He later posed a set of seven questions to top six IT firms in the country and sought their reply by October 23.
The questions thrown to them were: “How many campus interviews had been conducted from 2010 to 2017 in various engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu? How many colleges and what are the names of the colleges which were chosen for holding campus interviews by the private respondents? What is the yardstick followed by the private respondents while selecting the colleges for conducting such campus interviews?
“How many students have been selected in such campus interviews conducted from the year 2010 to 2017 and the list of those students? (year wise, college wise and company wise particulars to be furnished). Out of selected candidates, how many of them have been given placement orders? (year wise, college wise and company wise particulars to be furnished).
“Is it a fact that certain colleges are chosen for campus interviews only to boost the image of the concerned college and for admitting more students, as more than 500 colleges are located within Tamil Nadu? Whether Anna University is aware of this kind of allegations made against the multi national companies and the engineering colleges?”
The judge also directed National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) to file a report from 2010 to 2017 on surveys conducted by it about the employability of engineering graduates and the opportunities available for them.
