Over 19,000 Plus One merit seats will have to be set aside for implementing the 10% reservation for students from the economically weaker sections (EWS) of forward communities in higher secondary and vocational higher secondary schools.
The government on Tuesday issued an order reserving 10% of the total seats, including the marginal increase of 10-20% sanctioned recently, in various batches in government higher secondary and vocational higher secondary schools for students from the EWS in the unreserved category.
At present, there are 2,824 Plus One higher secondary batches in 819 government schools. In the wake of the marginal increase in seats, the number of seats in each batch has gone up to 55 in eight districts and 60 in six districts.
With 10% of the seats reserved for EWS students, this comes to six seats a batch, taking the total number of seats reserved for EWS students to 16,944 seats.
Similarly, in the vocational higher secondary wing, the total number of batches in government schools is 706. With 30 seats in a batch, the number of reserved seats comes to three, and the total number of reserved VHSE Plus One seats 2,118.
Fewer in general category
The 10% reservation for EWS (six seats each) from the unreserved category will bring down the number of merit seats to 19 from the present 25 in a batch of 55 seats and 21 from the current 27 in a batch of 60 in government higher secondary schools, limiting the options for students without any reservation benefits in Plus One admissions.
The government order says the reservation is sanctioned for Plus One admissions in schools under the General Education Department that do not have minority status and allow reservation for Other Backward Classes. The applicants should not belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes. Their annual family income should be ₹4 lakh or less . It has also laid down how the family income should be calculated.
Following the Constitutional amendment providing the 10% reservation, the government had appointed the K. Sasidharan Nair Commission to look into providing reservation for EWS in forward communities in the general category. The committee’s recommendations were accepted and the government issued orders in February sanctioning 10% reservation for EWS in government jobs and educational institutions.
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