Centralised admission for PU courses on cards

Meritorious students, seeking admission at their favourite pre-university colleges, need not to give up their dreams on account of exorbitant fee as the Department of Pre-university Education is planning centralised admissions.

Though the seat allotment is based on merit and follows all the reservations criteria in the existing system, most of the poor meritorious students are forced to give up their dream of joining the top colleges due to exorbitant fee decided by the college managements.

According to the plan, the department seeks to change the entire admission process by adopting the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) professional colleges seat allotment model for the academic year 2021-22.

Sources in the department told DH that this has been discussed in the recent meeting with representatives of private PU college managements.

The department has to come to an agreement with private colleges by sharing the seats as government quota and management quota and fixing the fee for both the quotas.

Supreeth B R, principal of Oxford Independent PU College in Kengeri, Bengaluru, said, “Even we have suggested the department to conduct centralised admissions pin code/postal code wise and give options for students to choose colleges
like KEA.”

Another principal of a private PU college in Bengaluru said, “We have witnessed students attempting suicides just because they failed to get a seat at a particular college. We have also seen parents taking a loan to admit their kids to some prime colleges. Centralised admissions through seat sharing and signing the agreement with colleges by fixing the fees.”

Marilingegowda Mali Patil, a social activist, said the plan has to be implemented. “It is surprising that government quota exists in ITI, Diploma, engineering, but not at the PUC level? When the government has implemented fee regulation at the school education level why not at the PUE level? We are planning to file a PIL on the same in the High Court requesting to direct the department to fix fee structure.”

A few years ago, the then director of the department of PUE Rashmi Mahesh proposed this Centralised admission concept, but it was not implemented due to her transfer.