West Bengal: No rise in undergraduate seats, no new subject amid pandemic

KOLKATA: The number of HS and ISC students scoring 90% and above has already exceeded 14,000, and CBSE is yet to publish its Class XII results. But universities and colleges in Bengal will not be able to increase a corresponding number of undergraduate seats due to the pandemic. Education minister Bratya Basu in the last meeting with vice-chancellors had instructed them to have a discussion with principals and inspectors of colleges and decide on seat rationalisation. “Despite our information, no college was ready to reduce seats or close departments due to the lack of takers. We did not get any such request either. The university can’t force affiliated colleges, which are governed by their BOG, to cut down on seats. But we will also not permit anyone to expand,” said a senior North Bengal University official. At none of the 152 colleges affiliated to Calcutta University, seats are being increased or new courses introduced this year. “We will not give any permission to increase the number of seats in CU colleges. No permission has been given to introduce new subjects. Despite receiving requests to open a few new colleges, we could not grant permission to any, barring one, in the 2021-22 academic session as inspection could not take place,” said a CU source. The state education department has neither received any application for introducing new subjects in the past one-and-a-half years nor has it been able to clear any pending application, as no inspection has been possible amid the pandemic. Many colleges did plan to apply for more seats in certain subjects but that has not happened as all campuses have been shut since March 2020. In HS 9,013 students scored 90% and above. Even if it’s considered that only 20% of ISC students have scored 90% and more, the two boards together would have more than 14,000 candidates in the high-scorer category. This, apart from CBSE students. The number of seats, especially in coveted subjects, fall far short. “The education department, universities and the colleges should have planned in advance, learning from last year’s experience. Since that has not happened, we might witness a similar chaos during admissions again,” said an education department official. Last year, 50% seats in 110 colleges in Bengal remained vacant. A couple of institutes reported 96%-74% vacancy. Even 67% vacancy was found in middle-tier colleges in 2020-21. The higher education department found out that some faculties at some colleges had no admission at all. As a result, VCs were told to hold virtual meetings with all their principals and inspectors to take a call on rationalizing seats. Last year, colleges struggled to fill seats in subjects, like philosophy, Sanskrit, Hindi and BCom general, while applications far exceeded the number of seats in English, history, geography, computer science, microbiology and chemistry. A consensus has been building in favour of seat rationalisation after principals reported that demand for certain subjects is much higher than others.The topic of seat rationalisation was also brought up in a meeting of principals last week. “Some subjects are much sought-after, while the demand for others is less,” said the principal of a south Kolkata college.