The craze for engineering education in the country seems to be on the wane with the number of trusts/societies applying to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to start new colleges has dwindled from 2,167 during 2010-11 to 523 this academic year.

Only 89 trusts/societies from Tamil Nadu applied to the council this year.

AICTE chairman S.S.Mantha said the thousands of vacant seats in hundreds of engineering colleges across the country was the main reason for the downturn.

He said two years ago, 2,167 trusts/societies had applied to the council for approval to start new engineering colleges, but the number dropped to 1,067 the following year and to 523 this academic year.

“Managements do not want to run colleges without students,” Mr Mantha told DC Friday on the sidelines of a higher education conclave organised by Confederation of Indian Industries.

The AICTE chairman said to help school dropouts earn a livelihood, the human resource development ministry had planned to include 200 hours of vocational education from class IX to college level.

-dc chn