The price of college education
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It’s that nail biting time of the year again for parents and students when the scramble for admission to PU and degree colleges begins. Anything goes at this time, from using political and bureaucratic influence to making ‘donations’ to bag that elusive seat. Sometimes these methods work and sometimes they don’t, or so claim colleges. Sr M. Juanita, principal, Mount Carmel College, says MCC follows a very transparent admission process. “I make it a point to meet every single child and parent. Of course, we have a lot of people who resort to influence and even offer ‘donations’, but I don’t entertain them. If they want to contribute, they can do so by paying a poor student’s fees and collecting a receipt,” she asserts .
A senior officer of the PU Board too says, “We get so many people coming here everyday hoping to gain some favour or the other, but we never entertain them. If people are so eager for change, then it’s legislation they should think about, instead of trying to take the easy way out. If these people stood outside the Vidhana Soudha instead of bureaucrats’ offices, it would be a lot more useful.”
While college managements and bureaucrats claim they do everything by the book, the complaints don’t stop, whether about lack of transparency in the admission process or colleges ignoring the cut-off policy. Only recently, this newspaper received a call from a student saying her application to a reputed college in the city had been turned down for no apparent reason. But most colleges refuse to acknowledge any of it. The Mount Carmel College website states, “The admission policy ensures special consideration for the differently abled, economically backward, scheduled castes and tribes, backward communities and the Catholic minority. Except for these special categories, the rest of the seats are allotted purely on merit.”
According to the regulations of this college, 50 per cent of the seats for an undergraduate degree are reserved under the minority quota, 27 per cent under the government quota and the remaining 23 per cent for general merit. “The minority quota is never full, we still have only 2 per cent Catholics,” says Sr Juanita, adding, “The remaining seats we allot to the general merit category. The science and humanities streams follow a walk-in interview method and the commerce stream the roster method.
Meanwhile Rashmi Mahesh, director, PU Board, says in an official statement that while it is not in a position to control admissions to private colleges, the centralised admission process to be introduced next year should sort out issues.
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