After being one of the top choices for Indian youth for decades, engineering as a course is losing its sheen. The number of students who have applied for the engineering entrance exam – JEE Main – has not touched the 11 lakh mark in the last four years. Even reputed IITs are slowly turning less for their entrance exams. Despite being eligible for IIT admission, students drop out of JEE Advanced and prefer to go for NITs in search of their favorite subject.
Every year, top 2.5 lakh rank holders from JEE Main are selected to appear for JEE Advanced. With many students having a single hand, the number of students qualified to take IIT admission is more than 2.5 lakh every year, however, in the last seven years, less than 1.8 lakh have appeared in the exam.
Experts believe that stiff competition and rising fees of coaching institutes are preventing students from appearing for high-end exams. Students who take JEE Main and qualify for JEE Advanced have more chances of getting a seat in top NITs and also get out of tough competition which sometimes takes them to Tier-3 IITs. Is. However, competition is tight for top colleges including IITs in Madras, Delhi and Bombay, especially for computer science and allied courses.
| year | JEE Main Registration | JEE Advanced Registration |
| 2017 | 11,86,454 | 1,72,024 |
| 2018 | 11,35,084 | 1,55,158 |
| 2019 | 6,08,440 | 1,61,319 |
| 2020 | 9,34,000 | 1,50,838 |
| 2021 | 10,48,012 | 1,41,699 |
| 2022 | 10,26,799 | 1,60,000 |
‘149 out of 150 students did not get seats’
Elaborating on the issue, former AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabuddhe said that one of the possible reasons could be high competition. Out of the lakhs of students who apply, only 2.5 lakh can sit for JEE Advanced and this is further filtered at the IIT admission stage.
“One possible reason behind this could be such a huge number of applicants, out of 150, around 149 students do not get seats. These students spend so much time and money on coaching, that the expenditure becomes high. If a student knows that he is mediocre, he may not want to spend that much on JEE coaching. They may be happy with the engineering colleges of the state. They may think that if I have to go to state level colleges later then it is better to go already. Why take the national level exam?,” said the recently retired AICTE chief.
Engineering not a safe option, says JEE topper
Lack of application or interest in IITs is an indicator of not only lack of qualifications but also lack of interest. JEE Main 2022 topper Parth Bhardwaj recently told news18.com that engineering is a Career is not a safe option As it used to be a decade ago. Bhardwaj, who is planning to choose UPSC CSE after his B.Tech, said, “Engineering is considered a safe option, but it is still not that safe in terms of career prospects and opportunities. Around 30-40 lakh students have taken CBSE 12th and around 9 lakh took JEE Main. I would say that the numbers are still quite high in JEE, however, there has been research which shows that around 80 percent of engineers have India Absolutely not suitable for any job.”
Students from low-income families, rural areas are at a disadvantage
Due to high competition, it is rare for a student to clear any national level exam without going through coaching classes. The high fee for coaching classes, however, is not affordable for everyone. While some meritorious students get free coaching facility from state governments, most of the students from underprivileged families do not get access to such higher training.
However, the coaching centers claim that they are actually bridging the gap between schooling and the qualification required to clear the college entrance exam.
Experts are of the opinion that mere school level education will not suffice for exams like JEE Advanced. “The exam pattern is completely different from what students learn in school. Most of the students who compete for IITs need very good coaching to guide them. Especially for the people of state boards. Anoop Raj, co-founder of Instapreps by 7Classes and an alumnus of IIT-Bombay, said that these students find it difficult to compete in national level examinations.
Hailing from a small town, Raj said that a lot of students miss the opportunity to register for IIT admissions due to such short notice of a few days and only online mode of application. “This year around 10-15 per cent students lost the opportunity due to short notice. While it is very easy for students living in cities to register online, students from villages and towns who have connectivity issues,” he said.
Raj claims, “If they had got at least one more week’s time, about 20,000 to 30,000 more students could have filled the form.”
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