Half of total intake of Diploma Engg, Arch remains vacant in State
   Date :04-Jul-2019

 
Principal Correspondent:
 
Of total 1.20 lakh Diploma Engg seats in State, 65,900 get confirm
 
4,101 students respond against 9,374 Architecture seats 
 
Maharashtra is witnessing poor response to technical courses as the number of students confirming their admissions to respective courses has reduced to a new low. As on July 2, for 1.20 lakh seats in Diploma Engineering courses in government and private polytechnic colleges across State, 65,900 students have confirmed the admissions. Similar is the scene in Architecture stream. The state-wide intake is 9,743 seats and 4,101 students have responded for admission till last date of the process. Efforts were taken by Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) to ensure good response to Post SSC Diploma Engineering course. DTE had conducted a workshop in Mumbai where faculties and Principals were instructed to endeavor to increase the response to the courses. Faculties were provided data of students whom teachers were expected to contact and convince for the admissions. DTE had announced the admission schedule much earlier.
 
The date of confirming admissions also was extended twice but all efforts went in vain. Following overwhelming response four years ago, Polytechnic is witnessing fall while this year the number has gone down drastically. In Maharashtra, 67,542 students have registered for technical courses. Of them, 65,900 submitted their forms and confirmed admissions. There are around 1.20 lakh seats of Diploma courses in Government as well as private polytechnic. Unlike last year, Architecture courses also experienced poor response. There are roughly 1,300 seats in Architecture in colleges across Nagpur region. But only 640 students turned up for the National Aptitude Test for Architecture (NATA), the Common Entrance Test (CET) conducted for the admissions to Architecture courses. At state-level, for 9,743 seats, 4,101 students responded as on the last day of confirming the applications. Since Council of Architecture (CoA) did not change the eligibility criterion, Architecture colleges have a great cause of concern as less number of students appeared in NATA.
 
According to experts, the reason for less turn-out should be attributed to the new qualifying rules brought by Council of Architecture for getting admission to the courses. Until last year, eligibility criterion for the admissions to Architecture course was 50% marks aggregate in Class 12 exam with 50% in Mathematics. This year, CoA changed the eligibility rules and made it mandatory for the students to score 50% marks aggregate in Class 12, 50% in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics as a group as well as same per cent of marks in each of these subjects individually. There is a less turn out for Class XI as well as Post SSC Diploma Engineering. According the reason is being attributed to the inclination of students towards General Science, Commerce. Because of saturation in engineering sector, students feel that they would pursue some different courses by taking admissions to General Science or Commerce, because of which less number of students are opting for technical courses except the courses offered by Industrial Training Institute where the number of applicants has increased by three times.
 
Validity certificate mess Presently, students are facing problem to procure validity certificate. Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has put a bizarre condition according to which students are supposed to get certificate from the colleges they would likely to get admission. How can a student know where he/she would get admission? And how can the college where he/she has not taken admission would give him the certificate? DTE did similar mess last year also. After the stories run by ‘The Hitavada’, the DTE changed the rule and asked students to get the validity from their previous colleges from where they did Class 12. Amidst this rule, students somehow did their procedures but sans submission of validity certificate. Now, it will be interesting to see whether their admissions would get confirmed or not.