Admission violations go uncheked as govt delays guidelines

Coimbatore: Academicians said the state government was too late to release the college admission guidelines and they won’t serve any purposes, as the arts and science colleges have almost completed the admission process.
It is to be noted that the higher education department releases the guidelines for admission to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in government, aided, university constituent and self-financing colleges of arts and science every year to ensure transparency and prevent malpractices.
While the arts and science colleges were asked to issue applications only from July 26 after the Class XII state board results were released on July 19, many self-financing and aided colleges had started the admission process much in advance.
The admission guidelines were, however, released only on August 6, by when many colleges had completed the admission process.
Pointing out that the colleges were ought to display fee structure, prepare rank lists before admitting students and follow reservation systems, academicians said many colleges hadn’t followed the norms this year. The violations, they said, went unchecked in the absence of admission guidelines.
A city college professor said aided colleges had completed admissions to the self-financing courses first, while keeping aided courses open. “Even meritorious students were forced to pay hefty sums and join the courses.” Unlike professional colleges, self-financing colleges don’t have uniform fee structure.
C Pichandy, former general secretary, Association of University Teachers, said they had been requesting the state government to release the admission guidelines well in advance, but to no avail.
“It is not possible to monitor admission related violations if the guidelines are issued so late, especially when the office of the regional joint director of collegiate education, which is the competent authority to check such violations, is short-staffed,” he said.
The admission related violations were very serious in nature in the district where college managements are very influential, he said while suggesting a single window system for admission as an ideal solution to check the same.