As admission crisis looms over students, their fate hangs in balance

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Taking into consideration the record high pass percentage this year in the High School Leaving Certificate (HSLC)/Assam High Madrassa (AHM) exam, and the Higher Secondary (HS) exam, and the shortage of seats in colleges and higher secondary schools in the State, the fate of students hangs in the balance. The Education Department is clearly staring at an admission crisis and to mitigate this crisis, the department has issued certain directives to colleges and higher secondary schools.

The number of students who passed the Class X exam this year is 3,97,121, which is 93.18 per cent against last year's

64.80 per cent. After assessment, a shortage of about 80,000 seats in Class XI is being foreseen. Likewise, about 2,60,000 students have passed the Higher Secondary final examination this year under AHSEC (Assam Higher Secondary Education Council) and CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education). After proper assessment it has been observed that there may be a shortage of about 40,000 seats in Degree courses this year in the State.

In order to conduct the admission in to Class XI and Degree courses this year in a coordinated way, some decisions have been taken by the Education Department. For admission into Class XI, the admission portal of AHSEC - www.darpan.ahseconline.in will be the common admission portal for all educational institutions to conduct admission. All educational institutions will have to first register themselves in the AHSEC web portal giving details of data as required by the portal. All students will have to register themselves in the portal using their roll number and choose maximum five institutions in order of their preference for admission. The educational institutions will be able to choose students from the portal and on getting approval by the institution, the students will be able to lock his choice and take the admission.

The private schools presently imparting education up to Class X will be allowed to start Class XI in their schools if they desire. All educational institutions admitting students in Class XI will have to provide admission to students only through the portal of AHSEC and not by any offline process.

For admission in degree courses, the education department has asked all colleges to enhance their seat capacity in degree class up to 20 per cent, in accordance to their suitability. All such colleges enhancing seat capacity will admit students in two shifts -day and evening -in order to mitigate the demand for seats. About 75 per cent of seats in degree course of the government and provincialized colleges will be reserved for students of AHSEC.

In Assam, the number of higher educational institutions is less. According to government data of 2018, the number of government/private colleges is 512, the number of general degree colleges is 343, number of engineering colleges (run by the Central Government/State Government/private) is 9, number of polytechnic institutions is 21, number of law colleges (government/ private) is 21, number of Sanksrit colleges is one and number of stand-alone higher education institutions is 71 only. Clearly, it will be difficult for these institutions to accomodate the high number of students who have passed the exams this year.

Moreover, there is also the problem of inadequate number of teachers. There are many posts of teachers lying vacant in colleges and higher secondary schools across Assam. As per data, there are 500 posts of teachers vacant in colleges and 1,200 posts of teachers vacant in higher secondary schools. With so many problems in the education sector, lakhs of students are clearly staring at an uncertain future.

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