Colleges left in lurch after spate of cancellations

Updated on: Wednesday, August 03, 2011

A day after the second general merit list for junior college admissions was announced, many colleges saw more cases of students cancelling admissions rather than confirming provisional admissions.

On Tuesday, students thronged college admission offices with a host of questions related to transfer of admissions. Principals are now worried that the admission process will not end anytime soon, making it impossible to start lectures for the new batch in time.

“Students are taking advantage of provisional admissions and making last minute changes in their preferences, leaving colleges in the lurch. The betterment option is a positive option, but this method of provisional admissions is creating havoc,” said T Shivare, principal of KPB Hinduja College, Charni Road. Close to 85 students cancelled their admissions at the college on Tuesday and authorities are worried that there will be more.

Colleges are also facing a lot of other admission queries from students. “Students are also confused about the entire admission process. Colleges are not equipped to answer such queries,” said Dinesh Panjwani, principal of R D National College in Bandra. He added, “We are worried that even after the last round of admissions, we won’t know the total number of students who have confirmed their seats with us. There is no way we can start lectures before that. We are planning to write to the authorities about this.”

To make matters worse, colleges have still not been informed about the process of confirming provisional admissions. At St Andrew’s College in Bandra, most students who cancelled their admissions were from the science stream. “This was bound to happen, especially when students get a chance to get through a college of higher priority. We are still unsure as to when we can start confirming admissions,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College.

Education officials, however, told TOI that colleges already know about the process. “They can start confirming admissions a day after the online admission process gets over. We haven’t set a time limit for this process, but colleges need to wrap up the process soon,” said an official from the deputy director of education’s office.

Colleges left in lurch after spate of cancellations

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