Bhubaneswar, Jan. 12: Private engineering colleges and technical institutes have outshone their government counterparts in campus recruitment.

Of 4,618 engineering graduates coming out of the government colleges and registered with various employment exchanges in the state, only 27 have managed to land jobs in the past five years. Confirming this, employment and technical education minister Pratap Keshari Dev said: “Twenty-seven candidates have been placed in various posts in the past five years.”

Similarly, diploma students graduating from technical education institutes run by the state government have also failed to get jobs in the state. In the past 12 years, 87,612 students received technical training, but 15,293 of them got jobs in the period.

However, the government does not have information about students getting employment through campus recruitment at the state-run engineering colleges. Taken together, the placement record of government engineering colleges is not encouraging.

The number of students getting placement through campus recruitment at the three leading government engineering colleges in the state — College of Engineering and Technology (CET), Government College of Engineering (GCE), Keonjhar, and Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology (IGIT) — is less when compared to those in the private sector. The government colleges could manage only between 50 to 70 per cent placement last year. In contrast, the private colleges were successful in getting 95 to 100 per cent placement for their students.

“The private institutes, especially, the reputed engineering colleges, used all their contacts and personal efforts to organise jobs for their students. However, this drive is missing in government engineering colleges. Here the students have to arrange jobs for themselves,” said a senior official of the state government.

The recruitment statistics of the CET does not match the institute’s placement records that the government has. While the government statistics show that 340 students from the college have got employment, the CET records says only 276 students have got appointment during in the same period.