About 50K expected to participate in TNEA counseling on Thursday

CHENNAI: Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy on Tuesday said that the third round of counseling for students seeking engineering seats in Tamil Nadu will begin on Thursday with about 50,000 candidates expected to participate.

After monitoring academic activities of the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE), which conducts Tamil Nadu Engineering Counselling (TNEA-2022), the minister said more than 13,000 students, who had participated in the first and second rounds of counseling have already joined their choice of colleges.

Pointing out that over 49,000 students will be participating in the third round of TNEA counseling, the minister said that about 1.1 lakh candidates are expected to come for the both third and the fourth rounds of counseling.

Ponmudy said that the tentative allotment of students, who participated in the third round of counseling, will be released on October 16 and the provisional allocations for these applicants will be listed on October 29.

To a question, the Higher Education Minister said that the preferred courses by the students for this academic year were Computer Science, Information Technology, and Electronics. He said that the least preferred courses among the students were Mining and Mechanical at this point in time. "However, after the fourth and final round of counseling more students were expected to join these courses,” he added.

The minister also reiterated that Tamil Nadu will follow only its own new education policy in the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), which is getting ready.

"We strongly oppose entrance tests, which were proposed in the Centre's New Education Policy (NEP),” he added.

With regard to the alleged issue on the appointment of lecturers in the government polytechnic institutions across the State, Ponmudy said all the recruitment, which was organised by the Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB), was transparent.

He also said that several present guest lecturers, who were appointed on a temporary basis, have flunked the entrance exam conducted by TRB, which was mandatory for getting permanent employment in the state-run polytechnic institutions.