Three-year diploma programmes have always been considered the poor cousins of four-year B.E. and B. Tech. engineering undergraduate programmes.
Not any longer, if one considers the placement offers that diploma holders get.
Almost all interested final year students in mechanical, electrical, electrical and electronics and civil engineering disciplines land a job and that too in campus interviews, says B. Senthil Kumar, Placement Officer, Government Polytechnic College for Women, Coimbatore.
The prospects for employment increase if the candidates are women and have chosen mechanical engineering, he adds and points out that more than 80 per cent final year students who wants jobs in the past three years got one.
Companies that are into wrist watches, two-wheelers, automation, precision control instruments, foundries, and even software companies recruit the students.
Various industry bodies like the builders’ association recruit civil engineer students as site engineers. In short, there’s a job for anyone who’s interested, says S. Vairam, Principal, Government Polytechnic College for Men, Coimbatore.
Unlike graduate engineering programmes, the recruiting companies are interested only in the domain knowledge of the candidates and their attitude, for they want candidates who will stay with the company for long. And, for such candidates, the companies are willing to sponsor higher education after a couple of years, he adds.
Salary
The salary usually varies from Rs. 9,500 to Rs. 15,000 a month and in exceptional cases up to Rs. 24,000.
But then there are not many takers for diploma courses. The ratio of number of seats available to the number applications sold tells a different story. A senior faculty of the Government Polytechnic College for Women, Coimbatore, on condition of anonymity, says that for the 420 seats in the six disciplines, the institution gets only twice the number of applicants.
Mr. Vairam says that he has been seeing a steady decline in the number of students who apply for diploma programmes and that perhaps has to do with the mushrooming of engineering colleges.
The decline is in not just in terms of number but also the quality of students, says K. Muthusamy, Secretary Nanjaiah Lingammal Polytechnic College, Mettupalayam. Until recently the polytechnic college got students who scored over 80 per cent in the Class X exam but not only average students with the 45 to 60 per cent mark category apply.
He attributes the reason to the increase in number of schools, the institutions offering fee waiver and other concessions to the top scorers in order to retain them and the perception that diploma programmes are poor cousins of graduate engineering programmes.
Chief Executive Officer of Bannari Amman Institute of Technology A.M. Natarajan says that for jobs in core engineering industries, diploma holders stand a better chance than graduate engineering students.
Securing seats for higher education There appears to be no problem for diploma holders in getting jobs but when it comes to securing seats for higher education (B.Com.) the students of Diploma in Modern Office Practice (MOP) get a raw deal. Sources familiar with the problem say that the students study more than 60 per cent of what is taught in the undergraduate course but are denied admission straight into the second year, as the State Government has not issued a government order for the purpose.
The students of MOP study Communication English, Commerce, Economics, Statistics, Banking, Marketing, Auditing, Company Law, Business Law, Business Communication, Business Organisation, Business Environment Management, Auditing and also Typewriting (English, Sr. grade).
They say that the MOP students find jobs in all sorts of offices as they possess the required skills. In fact, chartered accountants familiar with the course, hunt for the students to work in their offices but for the students to pursue B.Com., they are forced to join the first year.
P. Abirami, a MOP student who now pursues B.Com. in a city college, says that she was forced to join the first year though she had completed 60 per cent of the courses. A government order aimed at MOP students will help them complete the course in two years to take job or go in for masters.
