Only 25% 1st Year Engineering Students In Tamil Nadu Have Passed

Only one in four first-year engineering students in Tamil Nadu have passed all subjects in the first semester exams of January 2019. This is a marked drop as compared to the performance of last year. 

Analysis shows that of 81,178 students from 481 colleges affiliated to Anna University appeared for the exams. Only 20,562 or 25.33% cleared in all the subjects, as against 40% last year. 

Principals and professors made the dip to the tough engineering maths-1 question paper and to the student’s quality and performance. The pass percentage in engineering maths exam has lowered to 31.15% from more than 40% last year. A maths professor said that class XII students coming out of schools are not strong in basic concepts. A key part in the maths syllabus of engineering is Differential calculus for first year students. But the topics were in Class XI. Most of the students lack in understanding of the concepts.

Quality of students for engineering dropping

Most colleges have conducted bridge courses for helping students to refresh their understanding of basic concepts, but these courses also help only to an extent according to the professor. 
In physics and chemistry of engineering, students fared little better with 55.46% and 68.55% passing respectively. The student’s quality entering the engineering stream has been lowering every year. School education requires to be strengthened. Schools and teachers must train students properly in all topics for preparing them for higher education, according to B Chidambara Rajan, principal SRM of Valliammai Engineering College, Chennai. 

Maluk Mohamad, director, MAM College of Engineering and Technology in Tiruchi, said that there was a big mismatch between the school education provided and engineering education.  Students with more than 90% score in maths in Class XIIth are finding it tough to do long divisions. Earlier, the gap was masked by moderation awarding grace marks for improving pass percentage and liberal evaluation. 

But, the current administration under the new Vice-Chancellor has scrapped moderation for improving quality. Now, it reflects the true state of their students. 

Though various professors said the maths paper was difficult, some argue that all the questions were asked from within the syllabus. They said that if the syllabus is heavy for our first-year graduates, they have to change the syllabus. 

Anna University officials said that they had got representations from affiliated engineering colleges on the difficulty of the maths question paper. They added that we will try to set question papers with moderate difficulty in future.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/tough-maths-only-25-1st-year-engineering-students-in-tamil-nadu-clear-exams/articleshow/69420474.cms