No takers for 40% BEd seats in state Pvt Colleges Hardest Hit As New Grads Move Away From Taking Up Teaching Hemali Chhapia TNN Mumbai: Teacher-training colleges across the state are facing a shortage of students. When admissions closed on Saturday evening, institutes realized that classrooms would have to run halfempty—an indication that the teaching profession is in decline. Close to 40% seats in state colleges running the Bachelor of Education (BEd) programme are unfilled. The vacancy is more pronounced in private colleges, where every other seat is empty. The state has a total of 362 colleges offering the three-year BEd programme. Merely 12 government colleges and 38 aided institutes have not had trouble filling their seats. But, for the private colleges, irrespective of which part of the state they are located in, this has been their gloomiest admission season. Only 22,569 students have taken admission. Of the 35,660 seats, 13,091 are vacant. Arundhati Chavan, Principal of Swayamsiddhi College of Education, Thane, who is on the exam committee, said that over time the number of students had been falling and it was reflective of the reality that the state did not have jobs for so many fresh graduates. “Private colleges claim that they are going to find it difficult to run classes if so many seats are left vacant,” said a senior officer in the education department that conducts the BEd CET (common entrance test). “These colleges have suggested that either they should be permitted to hold a college-level test to admit more students or the state must conduct one more CET.” He said that last year, close to 5,000 seats had gone unfilled even after the state permitted admission of students who had not taken the entrance test. But the move was challenged in court, and this year the option of filling seats with those who have not qualified in the CET is not available. If the claim of private colleges is anything to go by, there are thousands of students who have not taken the entrance exam but have evinced interest in joining the programme. “Based on admission enquiries, the colleges have stated that there are about 12,000 additional students who have not taken the CET,” said another education officer. “But the number may be a bit less because there may be several students who may have enquired at more than one college.” The officer said this was the reason for the demand by private colleges for an additional CET. For the last three years, the state has banned new colleges from coming up. “But often colleges approach the NCTE (National Council for Teacher Education) and get an approval from it, and then the state has no choice but to let them start operations,” said a principal of a BEd college. (12 colleges with 1,180 seats are government-run; 38 are aided colleges with annual student intake of 3,680) Newspaper View
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:13:01 +0000