THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The opposition locked horns with the government over the shortage of Plus One seats, for which the allotment process is underway. A similar demand, for increasing the seats, from the ruling bench raised by KK Shailaja came as an icing on the cake for the opposition, which termed it as a genuine grievance of every member, irrespective of the ruling or the opposition benches.
But, general education minister V Sivankutty, who assured that every child will be allotted a seat, added that it cannot be ensured that every student will get a seat for the stream of his or her choice.
Seeking a leave for adjournment motion, MLA Shafi Parambil raised the matter saying that the government’s approach of uniformly increasing the number of seats for Plus One courses is unscientific, and would result in children being unable to choose the stream or school of their choice.
Sivankutty said that compared to the past five years, the number of students who passed SSLC and applied for Plus One course is less. The number of applicants for Plus One is 4,65,219 while the number of students who qualified with full A-Plus is 1,25,509, which is thrice the number compared to previous years.
After the first allotment, there are 1,59,840 applications pending and there are 1,92,951 seats left for allotment. After converting reservation seats that are lying vacant after the first allotment as general seats, all students will be ensured seats with the completion of second allotment and spot admission, he said.
The minister said that there will be surplus seats after the admission process is completed. He added that given the current financial position of the government, it cannot allot new batches in schools where there is a shortage of seats, but can only increase the seats in existing batches.
Then, opposition leader VD Satheesan said the situation in state is such that despite bagging A-Plus in all subjects, students are denied admission to courses of their choice. Mocking the government, he said that if there are excess seats, government should consider allocating them to students from Karnataka or Tamil Nadu. The education minister replied that since Karnataka or Tamil Nadu has not conducted SSLC exams, students from those states will not qualify for admission.
Satheesan countered that government cannot deny seats to students from CBSE or ICSE syllabus even if they are from Karnataka or TN, even though the boards did not conduct exams and the minister should know these things before making statements.
He said that with the government’s current approach, those students, who will have to depend on open schools, will be three times higher than last year and the government, which boasts of strengthening general education in public sector, is promoting private sector management seats that are taking huge donations even for Plus One seats.
The opposition later staged a walk out after speaker M B Rajesh denied the leave for adjournment motion on the basis of the minister’s reply.
