Govt nod eludes new degree seats

Updated on: Thursday, June 30, 2011

While several successful Class-XII students are unhappy about not making it to a college or a course of their choice this year, they must know that college heads share their grief too. For, even after showing interest in creating more space for students in their colleges and various unaided courses, government approval is yet to come.

"Colleges completed the applications in January itself. An application is first passed by the University of Mumbai and, once done, it goes to the government and by the time we get approval for the new course, admissions are long done," said a professor from a south Mumbai College. Even when colleges apply for extra seats or divisions to the existing unaided courses in their college, he said, approval comes really late and most times, colleges end up not running the course that year.

"We had faced a similar problem last year when we had applied to start two new unaided courses in Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance (BAF) and Bachelor of Commerce in Financial Management (BFM). The approval came a little late," said Kirti Narain, principal of Jai Hind College, Churchgate. It was a little difficult for the college to get students for the courses that year. Many colleges face the issue every year.

"The problem with getting the approval late is that if the college doesn't run the course with full strength that very year, it has to apply for the same status once again," said the professor. "Why wait for government's approval when an esteemed set of officials gives the approval at the University level?" he asked.

Some colleges said that even approval from government for college professors gets delayed. "We end up starting our courses with no full-time faculty in place. Even routine matters take a lot of time for approval, despite several attempts by us to hasten the process," said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew's College, Bandra.

Rajesh Tope, minister of higher and technical education, told TOI, "The government is supposed to approve new colleges and courses by June 15. However, a high court order has held us from approving new colleges this year. We have appealed against this order at the Supreme Court and are awaiting a reply from there soon. That's why approval of new seats and colleges is taking time." He added that the matter will be resolved soon.

Times of India

Govt nod eludes new degree seats

More Education news