Education department trains sight on stress-free e-admission

Updated on: Friday, May 27, 2011

The state education department is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that this year’s online junior college admissions are stress-free for students. After conducting a series of training sessions for principals from all schools and boards in the city last month, the department will launch the second phase of training next week. This is to ensure that nobody misses out on anything.

“We will first have a session for our officials and technicians and then for school principals. We have asked schools to hold another session for parents and students too,” deputy director of education (Mumbai region) Sunil R Chouhan said.

The training session for education officials and technicians will commence on May 31. This will be followed by a session for principals of CBSE and ICSE schools on June 1 and a session for SSC school principals on June 2. The user-friendly admission website, which was launched recently, allows students to take a visual tour of the entire admission process. Last year, many students ended up with seats in colleges that they weren’t even aware of. This was largely because many hadn’t understood the online admission process. The new website describes the process step by step, thus making it easier for students to understand the procedure.

“The second round of training is being conducted for people who missed it the first time or didn’t understand the process properly. We have also increased the number of guidance centres for students this year,” said a senior official from the office of the deputy director of education. As many as seven new guidance centres have been set up in addition to the existing 40 in Mumbai and Thane districts. To avoid the process from being dragged to offline admissions, the education department has also increased the minimum number of college options per student from five to 35. “Last year, students opted for only three to four colleges; so they missed out on getting seats in the online process. This time, every student has to compulsorily apply to at least 35 colleges,” added the official.

The online admission schedule will be available to students once all std X results are out. “Students faced a lot of problems last year and were stressed till they got a seat in a college. We are trying to iron out the problems and make this system full-proof,” added Chouhan.

Times View

Board examinations and admissions tend to increase students’ stress levels. Any move by the education department to reduce students’ stress by learning from previous years’ mistakes and make the admission process more user-friendly is welcome. But the department should ensure there is no repeat of last year’s goof-ups on D-Day.

Education department trains sight on stress-free e-admission

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