Govt. arts and science colleges to admit 20% more students this year, says Higher Education Minister

Higher Education Department increases college admissions by 20%, allocates ₹8,211.78 crore for infrastructure and competitive exam training.

The Higher Education Department has announced that arts and science colleges in the State will admit 20% more students this year. Self-financing colleges will be permitted to admit and 10% more students than the sanctioned intake and aided colleges may admit 15% more students, Higher Education Minister K. Ponmudy said in the Assembly on Monday.

The increase in seats was one of the announcements after the debate on budget allocation for the department for 2024-25. The Minister said many students with good scores had applied for college admission. The seat increase in aided and self-financing colleges will depend on the availability of infrastructure, he added.

The total outlay for higher education this year is ₹8,211.78 crore. The Directorate of Collegiate Education will get ₹4,470.50 crore and the Directorate of Technical Education ₹2,711.65 crore. The department has proposed to build hostels for male students in several institutions, including the Government College of Technology, Coimbatore and CIT Taramani campus in Chennai.

Government engineering colleges in Coimbatore, Salem, and Bargur will each get a robotics and artificial intelligence laboratory. Engineering colleges in Tirunelveli, Dharmapuri, and Erode will have an electric vehicle laboratory. An internet of things laboratory has been proposed in engineering colleges in Karaikudi and Bodinayakanur. The engineering colleges in Vellore, Thanjavur, and Tiruchi will each have an additive manufacturing laboratory.

A total of ₹77 lakh has been allotted to train 1,400 students for competitive exams this year. Last year, 500 students were trained, Mr. Ponmudy said. They will be trained to crack national and international competitive exams, including Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering, Common Admission Test, Graduate Record Examinations, and Test of English as a Foreign Language.

In 2023-24, of the 2,21,526 seats permitted by the All India Council for Technical Education to engineering colleges, including self-financing institutions, 1,69,887 seats were filled according to the policy note tabled during the discussions.

Several legislators wanted the government to start arts and science colleges in their constituencies. Mr. Ponmudy suggested that the members identify land and ensure that the norms to start a college had been fulfilled.