Of the 584 colleges in the State, online admission would be conducted in nearly 75 colleges, said Minister for Education Partha Chatterjee here on Monday, adding that even after the infrastructure of the remaining colleges is upgraded, online admission would only be at the college level and not at the university level.
The issue of the State government deferring the process - centralised online admission - initiated by University of Calcutta was raised in the Assembly during the day. While the Congress MLAs staged a walkout when an adjournment motion demanding discussion on the issue was not allowed by Speaker Biman Banerjee, the issue was raised by another legislator from the opposition in the zero hour.
“The State government has not done away with online admission at colleges. The process has been deferred in colleges where infrastructure is inadequate,” Mr. Chatterjee said in the House.
In 75 such colleges with requisite infrastructure, the admission would be through online and in remaining 519 colleges the infrastructure was inadequate to carry on with online system, he said.
Later speaking to journalists, Mr. Chatterjee said the State government had in principle decided that there would be no centralised online admission at the university level, though colleges could have their own system. “We do not want to do way with the autonomy of colleges,” he said.
Days before Mr. Chatterjee took over as the Education Minister, Calcutta University had decided to have an online centralised admission process for 134 colleges affiliated to it. The process was scrapped by the Minister, resulting in criticism from different quarters.
Meanwhile, the Minister met representatives of the students’ union of the Trinamool Congress and the Left parties. The representatives of the students’ union of the Left parties took out a rally in the day demanding a centralised online admission process at the university.
“I have told the student organisations that they cannot put pressure on the administration as far as admissions are concerned,” Mr. Chatterjee said.
The Minister also announced that a helpline would be launched where students and their parents could lodge a complaint on admission process from Tuesday. There would be a mobile number to which people could send in text messages, Mr. Chatterjee said.
