The existing infrastructure in all government colleges affiliated to the University of Calicut will have to be improved before raising the number of seats for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, a section of teachers have said.
This was against the backdrop of reports that thousands of students had lost their chance to pursue higher studies owing to reluctance on the part of the authorities to raise the number of seats as directed by the State government.
Some teachers in Kozhikode district, however, told The Hindu on Thursday that over 90% of government colleges spread across five districts had already increased the intake of students. A senior teacher at a government college claimed that only less than 10 institutions might have expressed inability to add more seats. He said most of those colleges had started functioning only in recent years, and some of them did not have own buildings.
The State government had permitted an increase in the number of seats for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in 2020-21 and 2021-22 in view of the pandemic. This was allowed to continue in the current academic year too. The colleges were allowed to proportionally increase the number of seats up to 70 for undergraduate courses. For postgraduate courses, seats for science subjects can be raised up to 25 and arts and commerce up to 30. If any of these courses already has a high number of seats, status quo can be maintained, and the colleges can decide if they want an increase.
The university was asked to implement the increase in seats considering the existing laws and infrastructure in place in colleges. The additional seats were to be included in the allotment before going ahead with admissions. The government directive was to increase the number of seats to help maximum number of students in line with the existing facilities in colleges. It was, however, reported that a majority of government colleges claimed that the classrooms did not have enough space to accommodate more students.
Meanwhile, most aided and unaided colleges increased the number of seats as well.
