Class 12 Mass Promotion Fails To Create Rush In Colleges

Mass promotion to class 12 students, due to the Covid pandemic, was supposed to be good news for government and private universities of Ahmedabad and Gujarat. The development was expected to arrest the trend of seats remaining vacant in several institutes offering professional and non-professional courses.
Some of the colleges had geared up to meet the anticipated rush for admissions by preparing to start more classes and additional shifts. Surprisingly, despite the centralised and decentralised admission process on the verge of completion there doesn’t seem to be any rush. In fact, the registrations have dipped or stayed at the same levels as last year. The development has crushed hopes of many courses regaining glory.

The diminishing figures of admission registrations also threaten the status of Ahmedabad as Gujarat’s education hub. Thanks to mass promotion, 14.40 lakh class 12 students from science and general streams were likely to seek admission in higher education institutes this year. Compared to the last year, 1,16,503 more students from general stream and 24,153 more from science stream were expected to apply for admissions.

However, in the state’s oldest university, the Gujarat University (GU), registrations in BCom and allied courses has dipped to 40,509 against 43,000 last year for nearly 41,000 seats. In BSc, only 6,752 registrations have been made for 16,737 seats. In BA, only 14,310 registrations have been made against 20,791 seats.

The scene is no different in degree engineering admissions which is managed by the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC). Against 36,216 registrations, 34,585 candidates have been included in the merit list this year. This is only a marginal rise as last year 33,703 registered for around 64,000 seats in degree engineering. The situation is such that engineering colleges are staring at huge vacancies, compounding the problem of engineering losing its appeal over the last few years.

Private universities in Ahmedabad also said the rush is not as high as it was expected to be. However, degree pharmacy has seen a surge in registrations from 11,464 last year to 15,491 this year.

Director General of Nirma University Dr Anup K Singh said the expected rush for both professional and non-professional courses is missing. “We fill up seats in professional courses based on national quota through exams like JEE. Lack of rush this year only indicates that many students may have chosen to repeat the year, study well and score better next year instead of taking admission in institutes with poor reputation this year.”

Singh said the situation is similar even in non-professional courses. “In BCom, we used to get around 700 applications for 120 seats and the figure has remained the same this year too,” he said.

Vice President of Silver Oak University Janak Khandwala said, “There was an expectation of a five-fold rise in students. So far, we have seen only double the number of students which is certainly not as per our expectation.”

Vice Chancellor of Karnavati University AK Suryavanshi said the varsity has seen robust registrations but nothing close to the expectation, after mass promotion of class 12 students. “This only means that additional 1.40 lakh students coming out of class 12, including those from government and grant-in-aid schools in rural and semi-urban areas, don’t wish to come to Ahmedabad for higher studies. They may prefer to get admission in nearby colleges or universities,” he said.

Dean of Commerce and member of GU’s admission committee Jashwant Thakkar said there are multiple reasons behind the missing rush. “The foremost is that GU was late in commencing admissions this year. Secondly, in anticipation of the third Covid wave, many students may have not chosen to take admission away from home. Also, online classes and exams have led to comfort of studying from home. So, students are hardly worried about choosing any university and are content with getting admission wherever available.