Simple task or a headache?

Updated on: Monday, July 06, 2009

“Students would prefer to join a college close to home. Unlike students of medical and engineering colleges, many degree students would not travel long distances or relocate for the sake of colleges,” said lecturer R. Ramachandrappa, who also represents the Bangalore University College Teachers’ Association.
Complications

Private unaided colleges and minority institutions too are expected to oppose the IUB’s move. “They are unnecessarily complicating the admission process,” said Principal of St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore, Fr. Ambrose Pinto.

“Our institution has been declared as a minority institution. So, we have to fill up 50 per cent of our seats with students belonging to minority communities. How can we admit students sent by the government through counselling under the centralised admission system?,” he asked.

Garden City College, Bangalore, a private unaided college offering a host of degree courses, too struck a discordant note. “A student may pick our college in the initial rounds of counselling. But if he picks up another college towards the final rounds of counselling, how can we fill up the seat? We may just not have any student to take up the seats left vacant towards the end of the counselling. This is how several seats in engineering and dental colleges are left vacant each year,” said a college spokesperson.

Also, many private colleges have a fee structure that is higher than the fees in government and aided colleges. But, most representatives of private colleges claimed that fee structure was not an issue for them in the context of centralised admission system.
Scepticism

The Principal of an autonomous institution was even sceptical about the Government’s ability to implement the IUB’s decision. “So many decisions of the IUB taken in the past could not be implemented,” he added.

Government officials are, however, optimistic that the centralised admission system can become a reality in Karnataka and cite the example of Delhi University adopting such a procedure for admission to colleges affiliated to it.

Meanwhile, the Government has offered to invite private and unaided colleges for a discussion to sort out the ticklish issues confronting the implementation of the process.

Mr. Limbavali, who expressed confidence that the Government colleges and aided colleges would fall in line, expressed his desire to convene a meeting of private college managements and discuss the matter.

The IUB has also decided to set the ball rolling by constituting a three-member expert committee to work out the modalities for implementing the policy.

The committee, comprising Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) Vice-Chancellor H.P. Khincha, VTU Registrar K.V.A. Balaji and Commissioner of Collegiate Education Nagambika Devi is expected to go into the nitty-gritty of the issue and sort it out.

Prof. Khincha said the committee will go into various dimensions of the centralised admission process and make necessary recommendations to the Government on the issue.

Simple task or a headache?

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