Growing craze for the Chartered Accountancy (CA) course among MPC students is likely to bleed engineering colleges further. With many MPC students opting for CA, the demand for engineering seats will go down this academic year and a number of seats are likely to remain vacant.
Already engineering colleges in the state are faced with crisis situation as the total available seats outnumber the qualified students. Managements of engineering colleges fear that students who have qualified in Eamcet may prefer CA to engineering. The state has witnessed a spurt in CA coaching centres of late.
Rough estimates point out that about 20,000 MPC students, who have qualified in Eamcet, may go for the CA course. The state has about 3.5 lakh engineering seats, but only 2.30 lakh students have qualified in the Eamcet.
About 27,000 students failed to clear the intermediate and thus the effective strength of candidates available for engineering counseling is only 2.03 lakh. This will further go down if the number of students who opt for IITs and NITs is taken into consideration. The diversion of MPC students to CA stream will make the matters worse for engineering colleges.
"Every student counts for us. The diversion of MPC students to CA will have a detrimental effect on our survival," said the chairman of a private engineering college.
The managements of engineering colleges feel that the aggressive campaign launched by the CA institutes with specific focus on MPC students has changed the trend. While the CA coaching institutes across the state are found packed with students, the engineering colleges are virtually searching for aspirants.
The engineering colleges particularly in Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam district are faced with a tough time due to the strong imprint of the CA coaching institutes in the region. "It will be really difficult phase for about 10% of the new colleges as they are struggling to get both the students and faculty," said M Koteswara Rao, a representative of the Engineering Colleges' Association.
He said early counselling for admissions could help engineering colleges to some extent as students, who wanted to go outside the state, might settle for a seat in their vicinity if the counselling is completed early. Last year about 1.75 lakh students joined the engineering stream. It is doubtful if even 1.5 lakh seats will be filled up this year.
"We are not responsible for the crisis in engineering colleges. In fact, we are still in the initial stage as we could garner just around 10% of the total MPC students," remarked Mattupalli Mohan of a leading CA institute.
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