Colleges in Telangana go for emerging courses, instead of closure

Hyderabad: The Telangana Engineering, Agriculture and Medical Common Entrance Test (EAMCET) which is scheduled from August 4-10, around 24,94,203 students have applied for the test for 2021. Of them 163,694 are of engineering stream and 85,729 are Agriculture and medical stream. Their numbers increased from 2020 which registered around 222,000. Nearly 83 per cent of students sat for the test.

Around 84,336 seats in BTech, 1,900 in B Pharmacy were available in the State last year of total 233 colleges. However, there might be a slight difference this year in the seats, as one or two colleges have sought progressive closure of the institution, seeking No Objection Certificate (NOC) this year.

Speaking to The Hans India, Dr Srinivas Goud, Director of Audit Cell, JNTU-H- nodal university conducting EAMCET, said this year nearly eight colleges have sought closure of few courses, while seeking new courses, such as computer science (artificial learning, machine learning, data science, data security) among others, have a higher demand. Many students are opting for computer science with AI and machine learning.

He pointed out that many colleges have chosen to start emerging field courses, instead of shutting down, if seats are not filled this year. "The colleges are reducing seats if the core branches have vacant seats. Hence, they are expecting more intakes of students in the new emerging courses by starting a new branch."

If seats are filled below 30 per cent in BTech for two consecutive years,(2019-20, 2020-21), they can apply for NOC. Hence, so far eight colleges have received the NOC for closure of their few courses. Apart from that, 49 colleges have applied for emerging courses this year. As many as 89 new courses have been chosen this year from colleges.

This year only two colleges have applied for closure; progressive closure has been issued to them. The total numbers of colleges 233 this year are reduced to 232. Of them 153 are engineering and 70 are pharmacy colleges. "As several colleges have applied to emerging courses, there will be chances of reduction of seats this year and demand for the new courses," he added.