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Latest News |
| 01st
Sep 2010 / Times of India / Mumbai Edition |
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Step-motherly treatment for 4,479 students
Despite Promising To Put Up Special Merit List, Govt
Ends Online Admission Process, Forcing Students To Re-Apply
To Colleges Directly
Mumbai: For several decades, the beginning of the monsoon
always marked the start of college life for lakhs of eager
Class X passouts. This time, though, Is almost the end
of the monsoons, and classes are yet to begin. While the
last three years have seen huge delays in the junior college
admission process thanks to poorly thought out government
policies announced at the eleventh hour, this years chaos
has resulted in the longest delay ever.
Nearly six months after Class X students appeared for
their board exams, 4,479 students have yet to be allotted
a seat in junior college. Tuesday marked the end of the
online admission process. Now, the state education department
has released a list of vacant seats in each college, and
students will have to re-apply directly to these colleges
directly.
Not only was the entire admission process stalled earlier
this year on account of litigation between the state g
ove r n m e n t and ICSE parents, but subsequently, too,
there have been delays at almost every stage of the admission
process. While the government had announced its decision
to count the scores in the best five subjects for Class
X students right at the start of the year, during admission
time the state suddenly came out with the fact that they
would do so only for SSC students. Not surprisingly, the
decision was challenged in the high court by ICSE parents.
The government, which lost the high court battle, went
into appeal in the S u p re m e Court. In an interim order
on July 13,the apex court asked the government to apply
the bestfive system to ICSE students as well. In a normal
year, at least two merit lists would have been out by
then.
But then again, theres hasnt been a normal year since
2007.In 2008,the government began its series of admission
polices that were biased towards state board students.
A day after the admission process began, a GR floated
on the government website at 10.30 pm announced its percentile
system. According to this system, instead of admitting
students on the basis of percentage scores in the board
exams, they were to calculate their percentile scores
based on a complex formula involving the top ten scores
in each board. The formula clearly favoured SSC students,
and was challenged by those from other boards. The government
lost the case in September, after colleges had already
admitted students on the basis of their percentile scores.
In 2009, a couple of weeks before admissions were to start,
the government said that 90% of all junior college seats
should be reserved for SSC students. Once again, the order
was challenged in court and the state lost its case.
This time around, while the admission process may be over
for the majority of the two lakh odd students vying for
a seat in a city college, the process is far from complete
for a few thousand students who were not allocated a seat
after going through the entire online admission process,
and will now have to apply offline to individual colleges.
Vacant Seats Dont Tally
While students have been asked to check the availability
of seats on the online admission website fyjc.org.in,
principals of many colleges told TOI that the figures
are not tallying. For instance, the website says that
Jai Hind College has 52 vacant seats in the commerce stream.
That is not possible, said principal Kirti Narain of Jai
Hind College. We just have a handful of seats, and are
now in the process of assigning them to applicants whose
scores are higher than our cut-off, said Narain, adding
that the figures on the admission website must not have
been updated. The figures given are tentative and there
might be a difference of a few seats in every college,
said an education official.
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