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State desperate to fill up seats in private engineering colleges

22 June 2011

statesman news service
KOLKATA, 22 JUNE: In a desperate bid to fill up engineering seats, the state higher education department has decided to allow students who were either disqualified or did not appear in the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE), to secure admission in private engineering colleges of the state.
The eligibility criteria is 50 per cent aggregate in physics, chemistry and mathematics. The colleges would be allowed to select students themselves as per marks attained in the Plus II exam.
This apart, students who qualified in BSc or diploma engineering, can also secure admission in first year after qualifying the Joint Entrance Examination of Lateral Entry (JELET) exam.
The decision has not only raised doubts over compromising on the academic standard, but also lowering the importance of conducting an entrance test for admission to engineering courses.  
Prof. Sajal Dasgupta, director, technical education, however, assured that academic standard of engineering education will not be lowered and argued that Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka also admit students outside the merit list to fill up seats.
Seats in private engineering colleges, particularly in rural areas, have been left vacant for the past few years. So much so that last year, around 6,500 out of 28,000 seats were vacant even after merit list was extended up to 80,000.
The department has thus come up with a three-way solution. The first being a publication of the longest merit list of over 90,000 candidates and a single round of counselling. This year, the counselling session will continue until all seats are filled.
For seats that are left vacant after counselling, BSc students or diploma engineers who are willing to secure admission can opt for berths through JELET in the first year.  
If seats remain vacant even after this, then the colleges would be asked to submit a course-wise vacancy list following which colleges would publish advertisements. Among the students who apply for the course, admission would be granted based on merit. The colleges would also have to submit the merit list to the department for ratification before admitting students.  
Incidentally, while efforts are on to fill up vacant seats, over 2,000 new seats are set to be increased this year. Prof. Dasgupta has put the blame on the AICTE that gives approval while the state government can only recommend.
This year, the AICTE has allowed colleges to fill 20 per cent of the total seats through lateral entry wherein diploma engineers secure admission in the second year in an engineering college after clearing JELET. So long 10 per cent students were admitted through JELET.
The Association of Professional Academic Institutions will hold a pre-counselling session from 26 to 28 June at Milan Mela to inform students about details of all colleges.

 Advisory committee at school level to look into syllabus, recruitment

KOLKATA, 22 JUNE: The state government will now form an advisory committee at the school-level to look into various issues ranging from recruitment to syllabi revision.
The 10-member committee will primarily work at upgrading the standard of school education. It will act like a policy-making body that will provide suggestions on many matters.   The names of the members who would be appointed on the committee will be announced after the names are ratified by chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee. The committee will be on the lines of the advisory committee that has been formed for higher education. Prof. Sunando Sanyal heads the recently formed higher education advisory committee. The second meeting of the higher education advisory committee is scheduled to be held on Friday. This apart, a mentor group has been formed to restore the lost glory of Presidency University. sns