Only 6% of students in IIT-Madras are from Tamil Nadu

Although over 10 lakh students graduate from Class 12 in the State annually, less than 150 students have enrolled in engineering programmes offered by Central institutes. Among these institutions the State is represented better in the Indian Institute of Technology Madras than in the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchi.

IIT Madras admits students through Joint Engineering Examination (Advanced) whereas NIT admits through JEE (Main). The latter is the first exam that aspirants to IITs must clear.

Even among these students, the representation from State board is negligible. Of the 799 candidates admitted by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in the academic year 2019-20, only 120 were from Tamil Nadu.

There are 154 students from Andhra Pradesh and 144 from Telangana. The presence of students from Tamil Nadu is low in other IITs as well. In IIT Hyderabad, there are only seven students, whereas in IIT Kanpur, of the 785 students admitted, only six are from Tamil Nadu. IIT Kharagpur has admitted 13 candidates from Tamil Nadu.

The State-wise break up of student admission was provided by these IITs in response to a query from V. Ram Kumar, a resident of Madurai. He had filed an application under the RTI Act with the National Institute of Technology Tiruchi and the IITs.

Low representation in NIT Tiruchi

The representation of the State in NIT Tiruchi is lowest among all States, however. The Institute said it had admitted 28 students from Tamil Nadu in contrast to 1,545 students from Telangana and 2,340 from Andhra Pradesh. Rajasthan contributed 1,668 students followed by Maharashtra with 517 students. Even Odisha is better represented in the campus with 37 students, the RTI response revealed.

Engineering educators say generally representation of A.P. and Telangana is almost on a par with Tamil Nadu in IIT-Madras.

For the State’s students to figure in all IITs students must be willing to attempt the JEE, they add.

Balaji Sampath, who runs Aha Guru, a coaching centre for JEE said in his centre until this year there was probably just one student from State board school as against 100 from CBSE schools. There was no interest in taking the JEE as the State did not have entrance exams for admission to engineering programmes, he contended. In A.P., Telangana and Karnataka students would use their preparation for JEE to ace the common admission test for other universities, he said.

Lack of need for preparation also left little room for coaching centres to set up shop.

In A.P., Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, coaching centres had been set up even in nondescript towns. In contrast in Tamil Nadu there are hardly any coaching centres in large towns such as Madurai or Tiruchi, he added.

One of his State board students who was recently admitted to an NIT, was from Puducherry, which too does not have a coaching centre, he said.

With NEET receiving much attention from students and the School Education Department revamping its textbooks to align to the requirement of medical entrance he had noticed a small increase in the number of students from State Board seeking out his coaching centre.

“Now that the State board has improved its syllabus we have four or five students from the State board. Earlier, it was just one student among 10. Some of them have started doing well,” he added.

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