TIRUCHI
Confusion prevails among administrators of arts and science colleges that had initiated online admission earlier this week, following an instruction on Friday from the Directorate of Collegiate Education to stop the process until July 20.
According to college heads, the idea of the Department of Higher Education seems to be that the online admission process must begin simultaneously in government, government-aided, and self-financed colleges.
But, the government has lost sight of the reality that the aided and self-financing colleges are desperately in need of money to run the show, the managements lament. Pushed into a financial crisis due to COVID 19 lockdown since March, private managements are at a loss to understand why the government has stopped the admission process for them.
“We paid our staff members salaries with the corpus fund for the last three months, and are in dire need of money accruing as course fee for meeting future salary costs. The government's order stopping the admission process has come as a bolt from the blue. We are left with no money to pay the staff for this month,” a principal of a self-financed college in the city said.
The online admission process in itself is devoid of clarity for government-aided colleges.
As per the specified instructions, the colleges are required to sell the applications and received the filled-in forms entirely through online process.
“Till last year, we had the flexibility of admitting students to seats that were not taken by students admitted on given dates to other applicants. This time, the scope does not exist for us to know whether the admitted students will unfailingly join the colleges and pay the fee on specified dates as it is normal for the candidates to apply for various colleges and take the admission in an institution from which they get the communication first,” a principal of one of the leading arts and science colleges in the city said.
The general view of the college heads is that full-fledged online admission process for arts and science colleges was not workable, since a majority of students would be from the rural areas with no access to computers or high-speed Internet connectivity.
Unlike in the case of engineering courses wherein the online admission process was well-structured, ad hocism in the admission process in the arts and science colleges would turn counterproductive crippling the system, they point out.
