Partha meets Presidency, Jadavpur V-Cs over admission issues

Kolkata: State Education minister Partha Chatterjee on Tuesday took on the daunting task of regulating admission related loopholes at Presidency and Jadavpur universities.

During his meeting with Presidency's Vice-Chancellor, Anuradha Lohia, Chatterjee stated that no seats will remain vacant in the coming academic session. According to sources, it has been an age-old practice of the University to keep the seat vacant even after students didn't attend classes despite taking admission. "The university has been asked to review this practice," said an official from the Education department.

Adding to that Chatterjee said: "We have offered them our suggestions on how to fill up the vacant seats. The Vice-Chancellor too has provided her explanation and has stated that the university is coming up with a solution to address this problem. We are hopeful of a positive outcome." He then added: "We have made our intentions clear that the government wants all seats in Presidency to be filled up, keeping the academic standards intact." The meeting was also attended by senior officials of the Education department including additional chief secretary Higher Education R S Shukla.

On the same day, Chatterjee made it clear to Jadavpur University that they need to maintain uniformity in the admission procedure. "We have noticed that to get admission in JU, students of certain subjects have to appear for an entrance exam, while for other subjects they get admitted on the basis of marks. From next academic year, there should be a uniform admission procedure for all subjects. If clearing an entrance test is the criteria for getting admitted to JU then all subjects should have an entrance test, else cut off marks should be set for all," said Chatterjee.

The state Education department has been concerned about 70 seats going vacant in JU's Engineering department and had even instructed JU's Vice-Chancellor, Suranjan Das to look into the matter. Following which, Das had even written to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). However, the admission of new students couldn't be facilitated due to certain rules of AICTE.

The Education minister, it seems, has taken the issue close to heart and is making sure that meritorious students don't miss out on the chance of getting admission in the best educational institutes that Kolkata boasts of.