Tamil Nadu   

Cashing in on high anxiety

K. Ramachandran

The orders of the Supreme Court on admission to management quota in unaided colleges are clear, but not everyone is taking them seriously

IGNORANT OF the existing law, parents and students are rushing to get "early admission" or `book' a seat for the next academic year in engineering, medical and other professional colleges.

And come colleges, if government officials, university academics, even parents and college managements are to be believed, have started admitting candidates, although the Supreme Court has in the Inaamdhar Trust case clearly spelt out the mode of admissions to `management' quota seats in unaided professional colleges.

All admissions to the unaided colleges have to be done on the basis of only a common entrance test and a single window admission mode.

Though in the same judgment, the Supreme Court had stated that the government cannot carve out any government quota from the seats of the unaided institutions of higher education.

In effect it means the entire intake in the professional colleges can be filled by the management, unless the latter decides to surrender all or a part of the seats to the pool filled by the government. Fifteen per cent of the seats are allotted as NRI quota.

Suitable legislation

The Supreme Court had also directed the Union and State governments to come up suitable legislations in line with this order. However, in the absence of any such law till now, the situation is turning chaotic.

It would certainly be relevant to recall the specific paragraphs in the Inaamdhar case judgment to understand the issue in perspective (regarding admission procedure in the unaided educational institutions, as answered in the Question No. 2 framed by the Bench), even while highlighting three key phrases in admissions, namely that it should be accessible, merit-based and non-exploitative.

"... There is nothing wrong in an entrance test being held for one group of institutions imparting same or similar education.

Such institutions situated in one State or in more than one State may join together and hold a common entrance test or the State may itself or through an agency arrange for holding of such test.

Out of such common merit list the successful candidates can be identified and chosen for being allotted to different institutions depending on the courses of study offered, the number of seats, the kind of minority to which the institution belongs and other relevant factors.

Does not cause dent

"Holding of such common entrance test followed by centralized counseling or, in other words, single window system regulating admissions does not cause any dent in the right of minority unaided educational institutions to admit students of their choice.

Such choice can be exercised from out of list of successful candidates prepared at the CET without altering the order of merit inter se of the students so chosen."

Capitation fee

The Bench had reiterated that the same principle applied to non-minority unaided institutions too, and also upheld the constitution of the fee and admission regulation committees formed pursuant to Islamic Academy judgment, saying they were needed to curb "unfair practices."

The Principal of a college in Erode says that the Union Government has talked about reservation in private colleges, though the Supreme Court had disapproved of this, the State government has not spelt out any norms for management quota admissions and the matter of entrance test is before the Court.

"In this confusing situation, parents and children are at their wits end, that too when they are hardly a month away from writing their Plus Two examinations.

"Someone has to clear the cloud and make it easy for parents to decide... " he notes.

Reiterating the Supreme Court's order Senior Advocate K.M.Vijayan says if any college tries to admit students without a CET or following the Supreme Court order, he would certainly move the Court through a public interest litigation.

Jayaprakash Gandhi, educational consultant says in all this confusion only the Deemed Universities are benefiting and they have started advertising well ahead to woo students. Management representatives would not go on record, except to say that many of the colleges would like to surrender a part of their seats to the government quota and secondly that in an election year, the government would not like to announce the policy decision which would ruffle one section or another.

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