This year onward, junior colleges run by Mumbai and Pune municipal corporations will reserve 50 per cent seats for students passing out of Mumbai and Pune municipal schools. (Representational)

IN A bid to shorten the admission process for first year junior college (FYJC) and encourage students to secure seats on merit, state school education department on Monday announced scrapping of the First Come First Serve (FCFS) round along with the separate “zero” round dedicated for admissions to bifocal courses. Admissions for bifocal courses will now take place along with other admission rounds.

FCFS round is conducted after completion of general admission rounds to allow students to grab seats that remain vacant in popular colleges. Instead of this round, special extra rounds will be conducted where students will continue to receive admissions based on their marks.

“In FCFS, those students with quick internet access used to gain seats even with lower marks, whereas deserving students with little or no internet access used to lose. We decided to prioritize merit and award admissions accordingly,” said director of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Dinkar Patil.

Whereas, in bifocal courses, students are allowed the option to opt for subjects focusing on vocational education as per options available in each stream. For example, science bifocal students study subjects such as electronic, electrical management and computer science, which are not a part of the general curriculum for science stream.

Through these changes, the department expects to shorten the admission procedure by at least 15 days, Patil said, adding that the department aims to begin colleges soon after results are announced.

Moreover, through the government notification released on Tuesday, the department announced reduction of quota for Socially and Economically Backward Class (SEBC) students from 16 per cent to 12 per cent. Last year, the Bombay High Court had asked the state government to bring down the SEBC reservation in educational institutions to 12 per cent.

The state has, however, increased reservation for specially-abled students from 3 per cent to 4 per cent. This applies to all recognized upper primary schools and junior colleges Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts under MMRDA, Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nagpur, Amravati, Nashik and Aurangabad municipal corporations.

This year onward, junior colleges run by Mumbai and Pune municipal corporations will reserve 50 per cent seats for students passing out of Mumbai and Pune municipal schools. BMC has three junior colleges for Science, located in Dadar, Andheri and Bhandup. Earlier, the reservation was between 10-20 per cent.

This year, the information booklet for admissions will be made available in the digital format on the website and the mobile application. To discourage queues of parents and students, the fees for online admissions will only be accepted through the website. Students will also need to upload the necessary documents such as marksheets, caste certificates and others documents necessary for claiming reservation on the website.