Error leaves eight pupils with over 80% sans seats

Updated on: Saturday, August 13, 2011

Eight students, all of whom scored over 80% in their Std X exams and were expecting to get into a good educational institution, have been left without a college because of a ‘technical error’ on the part of the education department. They now have to wait for the offline admissions to begin, and are worried that they may have missed out on good colleges despite their scores. All the best seats are assigned in the online process.

Slamming the education department, an angry parent said it was refusing to rectify a problem of its own making.

Class X high-scorers shunted out of online admission process

Amit Shah (16) scored 85.64% in his Class X board exams, but has still not been assigned a seat in a college because of a lapse on the part of the education department. And he’s not the only one. Seven other high-scorers have been left out of the online admission loop, and will now have to wait for admissions to go offline so that they can secure a seat.

Though all eight students had been assigned to Bharda New High School and Junior College, Fort, in the first general merit list itself and had submitted their documents, when the institution’s admissions office tried to secure their seats within the stipulated deadline, they found that the education department’s online admission link was no longer functioning. The local education officer in Colaba-—when contacted by the college authorities—categorically said that the students were no longer eligible for the online admission process.

“I am worried that there’ll be no seats left in a good college. I even visited the directorate of education for help, but to no avail,” said Shah.

Taher Patanwala faces a similar problem even after scoring 84.20% in his ICSE exam. “Even though my son scored well, he doesn’t have a college to go to,” said his mother, Farida Patanwala. “The online system should be scrapped.”

The principal and admissions office at Bharda Junior College is not at fault either. “The admission website clearly mentioned that the last day for updating information on their website had been postponed by a day from July 27 to 10 am on July 28. But when we went online, we found that the link was dysfunctional,” said Vinita Lewis, college principal. “We even sent a letter to the deputy director of education. It was sent back to us with a stamp, but no reply.”

A senior official from the deputy director’s office said: “Students should have no problem getting a seat.”

Times View

Not only did the education department make a mistake in the online admission process, it failed to rectify the problem immediately, because of which eight junior college aspirants have been shunted out of the online process. It’s been three years since JC admissions went online, but technical snafus and glitches have not been ironed out delaying not just colleges from starting lectures on time, but also adding to the stress levels of students and parents. The education board should ensure that deserving students get seats in reputed colleges.

Error leaves eight pupils with over 80% sans seats

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