Mita Mukherjee

The Bengal government will introduce more job oriented undergraduate courses and divert the vacant seats in the existing conventional arts, science and commerce streams to new professional courses “depending on demand”, state education minister Bratya Basu said on Tuesday.

Bengal at present has more than nine lakh undergraduate seats in around 461 state-aided colleges and 16 universities across Bengal, excluding private and autonomous institutions. This year, around 4.30 lakh students have finally taken admissions against the nine lakh plus seats till date which means almost half the seats are likely to remain vacant. The admission process is still under process and the first year classes will start on August 7.

Noticing the huge number of vacant seats, there was a speculation that the excess seats would be slashed.

Asked whether the government had any plan to reduce the seats, state education minister Basu told EducationWorld : “At present we are not thinking of reducing seats. Rather, we are stressing on starting more job oriented courses in future, so that our graduates are ready for the future job market when they pass out. Some of these vacant seats will be diverted to these courses in future depending on the demand.”    

Explaining the reason why so many seats are vacant, the minister said: “ The number of UG seats has been created over time to cater to the students passing class 12 from all boards per year in our state. Colleges have also been established in remote parts of our state, where transportation and other facilities are less due to different reasons including geographical and climatic conditions, with the aim to bring UG education at the doorstep of residents. We must also keep in mind that students passing class 12 may bulge in future. Besides, students from other states are also applying for pursuing UG in our state. Given the fact that West Bengal has traditionally imparted an impeccable level of higher studies, this number is also expected to rise in future.”

This year, for the first time, the state government introduced a single window for undergraduate admissions for the 461 colleges and 16 universities to fill close to 9.40 lakh seats across Bengal.

The newly introduced centralised online portal received nearly 33 lakh applications from across the country from nearly 5.20 lakh candidates out of whom 4.30 lakh students finally took the seats after paying the admission fees.

After the successful implementation of the centralized online portal, the government for the first time was able to get a clear picture about the exact requirement of seats at the undergraduate level, the subjects most in demand and also the areas where students are less interested to pursue studies.

For example, at several colleges, the demand for subjects like, economics, philosophy and Sanskrit is less, an official said. Though, 80 percent of applicants have taken admissions in the arts stream. Demand for science and commerce, however, is very low at many colleges, education department officials said.

Considering the huge vacancies, there was a proposal on whether the excess seats could be slashed, a senior official of the higher education department said.

Also read: Bengal VCs not included in UGC panel, says education minister Bratya Basu