CHENNAI: Poor demand has forced engineering colleges in the state to drop some specialised courses such as aeronautical engineering, automobile engineering and mechatronics. According to data from Anna University and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), nine engineering colleges have pulled out aeronautical engineering, eight automobile engineering and five colleges have dropped mechatronics in the past two years.
Colleges including deemed universities dropped nanotechnology, electronics communication engineering with specialisation in Internet of Things, mechanical engineering with specialisation in energy engineering and mechatronics for 2020-21.
Colleges cite poor campus placements for the streams as the main reason behind students not preferring the courses. “More than 90% of the campus recruiters are IT and IT product companies, so demand for circuit branches is more. Few core companies including automotive ones do campus placements,” said B Chidambararajan, principal of SRM Valliammai Engineering Collegey. He added that courses such as electronics and instrumentation, despite good job prospects, are being closed due to lack of awareness and enrolment.
Colleges expect the admission trend with computer science engineering being the most preferred course to continue, followed by artificial intelligence and data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“More than 70% of students pick streams with employability in mind. The aviation industry in our country is not doing well and so, students and parents have apprehensions about aeronautical engineering,” said R M Kishore, vice-chairman of RMK Engineering College. “All engineering courses are equally important and are promising. But when demand for mechanical engineering dips, so does the demand for allied subjects mechatronics, automobile engineering and vice versa,” he added.
Career consultant Jayaprakash Gandhi said students now prefer core branches. “Public sector jobs require GATE, which does not support specialised courses. During campus placements too, recruiters seem to prefer talent with broader core knowledge over ones with specialised knowledge,” he said.
Former vice-chancellor of Anna University, E Balagurusamy said it is good evolve based on the industry and drop less popular courses. “Aeronautical and marine engineering are old and demand has dropped. We must equip students in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, IoT, data science and blockchain technology,” he said.