Indore: Department of Higher Education (DHE) on Monday released schedule for online admission counselling for BEd and other teacher education programmes, a day after announcing that there won’t be entrance tests for admission in courses.
As per the schedule, registrations for BEd, MEd, BPEd, MPEd and four other teacher education programmes would start from June 15 and continue till June 23. “This year, students got merely nine days for registration for online admission counselling. This is because the DHE delayed the admission process due to unspecified reasons,” said Abhay Pandey, a spokesperson of Malwa Region Education College Association, a body of BEd and MEd colleges.
The DHE would give one month for registration for online admission counselling but this year it had to deviate from the general practice as it could not follow the timeline fixed by Supreme Court for admission in BEd course. As per the timeline fixed by SC, entrance test for admissions in BEd colleges were to be conducted between April 20-25. The results were to be declared between May 25-30.
As schedule could not be followed, the DHE abolished the provision of entrance test for this year. “The set procedure for admissions was that firstly the DHE would accept registration and then hold entrance test for BEd aspirants. On the basis of marks obtained by students, the DHE will prepare a merit list and accordingly allocate seats to them in colleges,” said Sai Baba College director Kamal Irani.
He said this year, however, the pattern is a bit different. “This year, the DHE will accept registration and allocate seats to students in BEd colleges on the basis of marks obtained in qualifying exams,” he added. “For other teacher training programmes also the same criteria will be used for admissions,” he added.
Three round of counselling
Three rounds of counselling will be done for teacher education programmes. Registrations for the first round will be held from June 15 to 18 and then seat allocations will be made on July 7. Registrations for second round will be held from July 12 to July 17 and then seat allocations will be made on July 27. Registrations for third round will be held from August 3 to 8 and seats allocations will be made on August 17.
DAVV loses four MEd colleges
In a setback to MEd aspirants, four colleges offering the two-year PG course shut down this year. Till last year, there were 13 MEd colleges under DAVV. This year, the number shot down to nine as NCTE withdrew recognition to four colleges citing various shortcomings. A loss of four colleges deprived students of 200 seats as each college had intake capacity of 50 each.
Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commission (MPPSC) has set up as many as 24 centres at four cities in the state for assistant professor exams which is to be held in a 15-day window from June 18 to 2. The exam centres has been set up in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior and Jabalpur.
MPPSC deputy secretary Dinesh Jain said that all the preparations of the exam have been done. The exam will be held in online mode without any hassle, he said. The long-awaited assistant professor exam, which was cancelled twice, would be held from June 18. Through this exam, MPPSC said, nearly 3500 seats in government colleges across the state would be filled.
“The exam will be held for as many as 41 subjects,” said Jain. MPPSC has declared the schedule of exam which is available on the official website of MPPSC. As per MPPSC, nearly 29,000 candidates have applied for assistant professor exam which is going to be held after a gap of nearly 25 years.
“Last assistant professor exam was held in year 1993. Since, government job aspirants have been waiting for the exam,” said Ramesh Mangal, a senior academic and retired principal. For last four years, the MPPSC has been trying to hold assistant professor exam but due to some or other issue it gets cancelled or postponed.
After a wait for nearly two decades, the MPPSC had invited applications for filling about 1,650 posts of assistant professors in 2014, but the recruitment process was cancelled in September in 2015 following some eligibility related issues. The process was resumed with DHE adding more teaching posts to the vacant posts taking the number of vacancies up to 2,371 in government colleges.
These vacancies were again advertised in 2016 by the MPPSC and exam was fixed on August 22. But, the eligibility criteria decided for the post, made thousands of PhD holders, who obtained their degrees before July 2009, ineligible which led to protests forcing the state government to cancel the exam again. To resolve the issue, the MPPSC held State Eligibility Test (SET) last year so that the PhD holders, who were rendered ineligible for the assistant professor’s posts, could be become eligible on the basis of SET.
When the appointment process for started again, the controversy erupted over discrimination of age criteria set differently for the candidates from the state and outside. Following the orders of the court, the appointment process was postponed. The age issue was addressed about three months ago and now finally the exam dates are out.
“There is no problem with the exam now. It will be held on the scheduled dates,” the MPPSC deputy secretary said adding that they have planned to fill vacancies in the colleges by August end.GST amendments likely in Parliament’s monsoon session.