Even as thousands of junior college seats remain vacant every year, the state education department has permitted 30 colleges in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region(MMR) to have additional divisions for 2019-20, in order to increase intake of first-year junior college (FYJC) students.
These colleges, which include ones in Thane, are part of 63 colleges across Maharashtra that have received approval from the education department to start additional class divisions on a self-financed basis. Some of them have also been allowed to start a new stream.
“These colleges have to ensure that there is adequate infrastructure and staff to cater to the newly approved divisions. Care also needs to be taken to ensure that the number of students in each division is as per the rules laid down by the department,” states a government resolution (GR) published on Monday.
Some of the colleges where additional divisions have been approved include BJPC college in Charni road, Wilson college in Chowpatty, Bhavan’s College in Andheri and Thakur College in Dahisar. Most of these colleges have received permissions to open additional divisions for the commerce stream.
In 2018, more than 70,000 FYJC seats remained vacant in MMR even after seven admission rounds. With 98 prominent colleges being allowed to add 5-8% to their existing seats this year and with fewer number of applicants, the number of vacancies is expected to be higher than last year.
“If we see the data for the first three rounds, over 1.70 lakh seats are still unclaimed even as there are merely about 40,000 students yet to get admission. Granting permissions to more and more colleges even as there is a dip in the number of applications would only leave more seats vacant,” said the principal of a suburban college, on the condition of anonymity.
As against 2.31 lakh applications last year, this year only 2.11 lakh students applied for an FYJC seat.
