Three colleges apply to GTU for closure

Amid a tough employment environment, falling demand, and restrictions on the mobility of students due to Covid-19 pandemic, three colleges affiliated to Gujarat Technological University have applied for closure during the academic year 2020-21. These colleges offered professional courses like MCA, MBA and MArch.

Professional courses are facing the consequences of increasing demand-supply gap as more and more colleges offering such courses mushroom. This year, Jairambhai Patel College in Gandhinagar with 60 MCA seats, Oak Brook Business School in Gandhinagar with 120 MBA seats, and Laxmi Institute of Architecture in Surat with 40 architecture seats have applied to GTU for closure.

In all, there will be around 3,214 fewer seats in professional courses as 37 other institutes have applied for reduction in number of seats. These include 1,830 engineering seats, 54 MBA seats, and 1,110 seats in diploma colleges.

Officials in the Admission Committee for Professional Courses said there are close to 66,000 seats in degree engineering, and the seat matrix for other courses are being worked out as the admission process commences. In degree engineering, there are 16 government colleges, four grant-in-aid, one autonomous, and 114 self-financed colleges in Gujarat.

An official said that the number of seats at one point of time was close to 70,000 but it has come down despite having additional seats under EWS. VGEC (Chandkheda) principal Nilay Bhuptani said the move of more professional degree colleges closing down is a good trend. “This will ensure survival of the fittest. Those who have the best of infrastructure, teachers, and quality of education will survive by showing their mettle,” he said.

GTU V-C Navin Sheth said there are affiliated colleges that do not get an adequate number of students but choose to continue running the college anyway. “There are at least 5 such colleges that have students in single digit. But choose to continue college, pay affiliation fees to GTU and AICTE. “ He also said that no engineering college has applied for closure this year.

Now, medicos can pay fees in four parts
The State government has provided relief to medical and paramedical students in payment of fees. Now they can opt to pay in four instalments, announced DyCM Nitin Patel.

Patel said, “Student representatives from GMERS, corporation-run colleges and private medical colleges had made a request last week that owing to the corona pandemic, their income had reduced and they were facing difficulty in paying fees.” He added, “The government has decided that medical, dental, ayurvedic, homoeopathic, nursing, physiotherapy or paramedical students will be eligible to pay in four instalments. Usually they pay fees in July, but now they can pay 25% fee in each month, from September to December.”
-Alok Brahmbhatt



35 schools slash fees by 25%

Even as reputed schools remain defiant when it comes to reducing the blanket fees for students in the time of Covid-19, as many as 35 schools in eastern part of the city decided to slash their fees by 25% for June, July and August.

These include Vedant International School, Devasya International School, Sankalp International School, Panchamrut International School, Maharshi Sandipani School, Dharti Vidyalay, Panchtirth Vidyalay, Shiv Jyoti Vidyamandir, Shakti Vidyalay, Jayhind Vidyalay, Sarthak Vidyasankul, Agrasen Shikshan Sankul, Divine Public School to mention a few. These are located in Vastral, Nikol and Naroda areas. Their fees range from Rs 12,000 a year to Rs 30,000 a year. It is a muchneeded relief for parents who are facing loss of business and jobs following extended lockdown. DEO Rural, RR Vyas said that the decision by the SFI schools under his jurisdiction is a welcome step. “We hope that more schools will come forward after gauging the situation to help the parents,” he said.

Bipin Adroja, trustee of Sankalp International School in Nikol, said, “It is getting difficult for us to run school without getting the required fees. We decided to reduce the fees to help parents who are struggling financially. We hope they will pay up now that we have given them some relief,” he said.
- Niyati Rana