The sale of application forms for engineering courses has fallen significantly this year. Last year, with two days to go before issue of forms closed, Anna University had sold 2,35,054 forms. On Saturday, three days ahead of closure, only 2,02,306 forms had been sold.
The only time, forms sale plummeted in the last five years since 2010, was in 2011, when it fell to 1,64,245 from the previous year’s tally by more than 38,000 forms.
Unlike last year, fewer forms appear to have been sold since the day the sale began.
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On the first day, a total of 70,212 forms were sold this year which is only 7,712 forms more than what was sold in 2010 (63,800). In the next three years, between 2011 and 2013, it was over 88,000 forms, indicating a spurt in interest among students to pursue engineering courses.
Despite these fluctuating numbers there has been a steady increase in the number of students called for counselling.
From 1.54 lakh students in 2010 it rose to over 1.78 lakh last year. Also, a total of 1.24 lakh seats were allotted last year as against 1.11 lakh seats in 2010.
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More vacancies
However, vacancies in engineering colleges have increased with alarming regularity for the same period. A total of 8,172 seats fell vacant in 2010 at the end of the general counselling conducted by Anna University. Last year, it was 80,689 seats. Higher education officials said the total vacancies for 2014 academic year hovers around 1 lakh seats.
According to Moorthy Selvakumaran, an education analyst, the drop in sales could be an indication that interest in engineering is waning.
This fear could have been fuelled by the large number of vacancies in colleges too, he says.