The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Government college admission: students' fate hangs in balance

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Thursday, Jun 23, 2011
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Government college admission: students' fate hangs in balance

Amutha Kannan

COIMBATORE: R. Devi Satya from Vedaranyam, who completed her Plus-Two in 2008, was staying in her uncle's house in Coimbatore and working her way to save up for her graduation course. She had applied to the Government Arts College, Coimbatore, this year to secure a seat in B.Sc. Computer Science or Botany. From an economically poor background, she came to the college on Wednesday as per the counselling schedule hoping to get admission only to be told that the seats under the women quota were filled on Monday itself. The general counselling began last Saturday.

In tears, she was seen requesting the college faculty involved in counselling to accommodate her as it was her long-time dream to earn a degree.

There was P. Anita, daughter of a daily wage labourer, who too got turned away because of the same reason. There were 400 similar cases on Wednesday alone, both in the morning and afternoon sessions, who had to be sent back because the college had only 30 per cent quota for women.

As the process of filling up 1,279 seats of the Government Arts College under the single window system draws to a close on Thursday, the fate of the 3,694 candidates, both boys and girls, who will not get admission, will be nothing to write home about.

The college received 4,973 applications in all categories and the maximum number were from girl candidates. With no means to even think about studying in aided or self-financing colleges, these few thousands with dreams of becoming the first-generation graduates, will have to bury them.

Explaining the inability to accommodate them, K. Shanmuga Sundaram, Controller of Examinations, told The Hindu that while most of the districts had more than one college, Coimbatore had to make do with only one Government college. With such a large number of students expressing desire to study, it was pitiable to turn so many away.

“Also, the college is officially a men's college. Only a few years ago, to accommodate women, we were given permission to admit girls under the 30 per cent quota. But the number of women applicants is very high. Since the admission here is not done manually based on courses but as a single window system, the availability status will be known only on a day-to-day basis. From Tuesday we had to turn away girl students in large numbers,” he said. He and other faculty members of the college reiterated the need to have another Government college in Coimbatore, preferably a women's college. And, the Government had to relax norms to enable the college to admit students as soon as the Plus-Two results were announced.

As dejected students came out of the Government college, representatives of some self-financing colleges were seen approaching them, with promise of a seat.

A representative of a private college said the institution sent vehicles to bring students who could be convinced to study there.

Faculty members of Government Arts College had to move them. They cited instances of such students being lured to self-financing colleges on the promise of having to pay a meagre amount during admission. The college, however, charged the normal fee of a self-financing course in the subsequent semester.

Some private college authorities, however, refuted the allegation.

The Government college authorities assert that the solution lay in Coimbatore getting another Government Arts College to accommodate at least another 1,500 deserving students.

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