Bengaluru: Engineering trends in the state remained steady this year, as evinced by the counselling pattern of Common Entrance Test (CET). The rate of vacant seats in govt quota in engineering rose slightly from 16% to 18% this year.As per data from Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), 15,403 seats lie vacant after the completion of all rounds of counselling. There are a total of 1,53,916 engineering seats in Karnataka, and KEA conducted counselling for 72,506 govt-quota seats. After adding in various other quotas and the seats surrendered by private colleges, KEA had 85,020 seats to give away through its counselling process. Of these, 69,617 were finally allotted. At govt colleges, 1,421 seats have been left vacant this year.Last year, KEA’s total intake was 79,695, including supernumerary quota and surrendered seats. Of those, 66,606 were allotted, leaving 13,089 seats vacant. In terms of overall figures — including KEA, ComedK, and minority colleges (Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minorities Professional Colleges Association) — the number of vacant seats was 32,566 last year. The total number for this year is still unavailable.In the case of ComedK (Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka), the trend is similar, but better. While there were 18,726 vacant seats in 2024, it reduced to 18,578 this time. In 2023-24, there were 14,354 vacant seats.“There continues to be a mad rush for artificial intelligence and machine learning programmes. However, the question is, how many colleges have the qualified faculty for teaching these programmes? The lessons are clear, but if the colleges do not update themselves, students will not come,” said S Kumar, secretary of ComedK.There are no engineering colleges with zero admission. The Kannada engineering programme did not find takers this year as well. Last year, even though one student joined a Kannada programme, he soon switched the medium of instruction to English. While the craze for computer science and allied programmes continued, core engineering programmes also saw a slight comeback, with many colleges seeing an increase in intake for civil, mechanical, and electrical & electronics branches.
