Chennai: To attract toppers, govt colleges in the city sought approval from the govt to start trendingcourses such as data science, artificial intelligence, defence studies and business management courses at the undergraduate level.Most of the city colleges have filled more than 90% of their intake for the 2026-27 academic year. However, colleges said courses such as history, economics and maths could not attract students as students are interested in studying emerging technologies even in the arts and science stream.Govt Arts College in Nandanam has filled more than 90% of seats of its 1,430 sanctioned strength for the 2026-27 academic year.“We have attracted more top-ranking students after the college became co-ed last year. We wanted to offer courses such as data science, AI and defence studies to attract top rankers,” a professor who involved in admissions in the college said.The college has submitted a proposal to govt on new courses.As of now, only two govt colleges, including Dr Ambedkar Arts College at Vyasarpadi, are offering a defence studies course which is very popular across the state.“The defence course attracted more than 4,000 applications for 50 seats. Students who want to join the armed forces are interested in defence studies. However, there are no permanent faculty member to offer the programme. The college employed guest faculty through PTA,” a faculty member from the college said.Presidency College, which has attracted more than 45,000 applications against a sanctioned intake of 2,380, also plans to start new courses such as BBA, defence studies and communication courses for the next academic year.“The state govt should start courses such as BA defence studies with new faculty members in more govt colleges. There is a demand for courses such as sociology, public administration and microbiology as well,” said S Suresh, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Govt Collegiate Teachers’ Association (TNGCTA).According to the data from the Directorate of Collegiate Education, 97,244 seats out of 1,26,959 seats were filled in 181 colleges for the 2026-27 academic year.
