‘80% of vacant FYJC seats in private unaided colleges’

More than 80% of the total vacant seats in first-year junior colleges (FYJC) are in private unaided junior colleges across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), revealed data from the education department.

According to the data, 97,150 seats lie vacant after five admission rounds this year. In 2018, nearly 70,000 seats were unclaimed after seven rounds. Experts attribute the trend to poor regulation of unaided colleges, approvals for additional divisions and more colleges and the falling number of takers. Of the total number of unclaimed seats this year, only 18,068 are in aided colleges while the rest are in private unaided ones.

At Nirmala Memorial Foundation’s junior college in Kandivli, 1,202 Commerce seats are vacant while 788 Science seats lie vacant this year. The unaided college has consistently seen a large number of vacancies in the last few years.

“We have 2,400 Commerce seats, which is a big number to fill. There was a huge demand 10 years ago when additional divisions were approved. With newer colleges in the same vicinity, the demand is now divided,” said Sylvia Fernandes, vice-principal, Nirmala Memorial Foundation.

At Lords Junior College, Goregaon, 774 Commerce seats and 500 Science seats were vacant this year. The college had over 500 vacancies in both these streams even in 2018. HT tried contacting the college’s officials, but they did not respond to calls and emails.

Rajendra Ahire, deputy director of education, Mumbai region, said, “The government cannot directly do anything in this matter. Unaided colleges do not get any aid and thus if their seats remain vacant, it is not a burden on the state. If these institutes ask for the closure of divisions, we can permit that.”

For 2019-20, the education department approved 35 new colleges in MMR. It also permitted 30 new colleges to have additional divisions. Prominent colleges were also allowed to increase their intake by 5-8% this year due to the disparity in scores of students from the state board and other boards. Vaishali Bafna from SYSCOM — a Pune-based think tank — said the education department can issue notices to colleges whose seats are lying vacant for three years in a row or more. “Also, when colleges have hundreds of vacant seats every year, permission should not be given to new colleges in the same vicinity,” said Bafna.

First Published: Sep 09, 2019 00:29 IST