BHUBANESWAR: Even as the academic session for UG colleges started early this year, the admissions are far from over. Although the first semester exams are scheduled for January next year, nearly 80,000 seats are vacant for which spot admissions are currently underway.
This year for the first time, the Higher Education department decided to begin the UG admission cycle in April, much before the Plus II results were announced by the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE). The idea was to complete the long admission process on time and begin the academic session early.
Accordingly, students awaiting their Plus II scores were asked to fill up their common application forms (CAFs) for UG admission by choosing the ‘appeared’ option in the application form. Previously, the CAFs for UG admissions could be submitted only after CHSE published the results. However, though the academic session began on July 10, the admission cycle did not end as expected.
Officials in the Higher Education department said the admission timeline had to be extended multiple times due to delayed CHSE results, incorporation of SEBC quota, allowing students more time to pay admission fees and the cyclone Montha, among other reasons. Besides, after the second phase admission, many students who could not get through any professional degree, placed requests at the CM’s grievance cell to extend the timeline for them to take admission to UG courses, officials added.
Subsequently, with a large number of seats remaining vacant, spot admissions are underway to fill them up. “The students currently taking admissions are primarily the ones who had requested the state government to extend the timeline after failing to secure a professional degree seat,” said an official.
With all the first year students scheduled to appear for the first semester exam in January, the department has plans to offer two months of extra classes to those who took admission late, to help them catch up on the course which has already been covered in the last three months. At the recent principals’ conference, the heads of the institutions were advised to hold extra classes for such students.
Meanwhile, as on Monday, 79,839 seats were vacant in degree colleges. But 99 per cent of seats in the government institutions and close to 97 pc seats in non-aided colleges have been filled up. The majority of the vacancies are in self-financing colleges where the course cost is high.
The story is reported by Diana Sahu for The New Indian Express
