Howrah: Most students of the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology have chosen to quit the five-year dual degree course at the end of the fourth year.

The numbers once again show that there are hardly any takers for the BTech-MTech combined course at the Shibpur institute.

Of the 564 students who had enrolled in the dual degree course in 2015, 502 have chosen the exit option.

This is the second batch of students to opt out of the course since the institute approved the exit option at the end of the fourth year.

In the 2014 batch, 410 of 494 students went for the exit option and left the institute this year with the BTech degrees.

The board of governors, the IIEST's highest decision-making body, had passed a resolution on November 23, 2016, okaying the exit plan.

The board felt the exit option was necessary since most recruiters prefer BTech graduates, an IIEST official said.

The latest figure of students going for the exit option has been uploaded on www.iiests.ac.in.

Students were asked to submit their preference to the dean (academic) by March 30.

Those who have chosen the exit option will complete the BTech course and receive the degree after successfully clearing the eighth semester next year.

The figures show the dual degree course hasn't been able to attract students the way it was expected, IIEST registrar Biman Banerjee said. "Students want jobs after completing their BTech courses. Experience clearly shows this," Banerjee said.

While approving the exit option, the board had observed that there had been a fall in the quality of students in the dual degree course because of a dearth of jobs.

The exit option is "an interim measure for five years, during which the institute will try to complete the requisite work with help from the HRD ministry to create infrastructure according to the Anandakrishnan committee", the resolution had said.

The institute scrapped the dual degree course last year. "We could not build adequate infrastructure like classrooms and laboratories.... So, the course was scrapped," Banerjee said.

Since the reversal to BTech, more students with better ranks in the JEE Main have joined the institute.