With the first semester BEd exams commencing in 10 days and nearly 75 per cent government quota seats lying vacant in Bangalore, many BEd colleges affiliated to Bangalore University (BU) have sought the higher education department’s permission to convert the vacant seats to management quota.
The catch here is, most of the colleges that have approached the department are those that have been recommended for disaffiliation by the BU Task Force. According to a document (ED 73 URC 2013) available with Express, at least 18 BEd colleges under the scanner for academic irregularities have approached the department in February for conversion of vacant government quota seats into management quota.
The premise for this is the huge number of vacant government quota seats in the Bangalore district alone. Statistics from the Central Admission Cell show the total government intake in 88 BEd colleges in Bangalore Urban and Rural was 4,625, of which an appalling 3,429 seats are vacant - almost 75 per cent!
Dhanavanthri College of Education in Chikkabanavara, has all 50 government quota seats vacant. While the college has asked for conversion of the vacant seats into management quota, the colleges has been recommended permanent disaffiliation by the Task Force for being non-functional.
Likewise, Rajaram Mohan Roy College of Education in Magadi Road, which has met the same fate in the Task Force report, has 48 out of 50 government quota seats vacant. Task Force chairperson and BU Academic Council member H Karan Kumar said, “This is a clear indication that there is no demand for BEd courses. Besides, there is no way the government can allow conversion of vacant seats into management quota. Sixty colleges, between October and February, have approached the department for this and some of them have got the permission.”
The Task Force report, which inspected 99 BEd colleges under BU, listed 23 colleges for “gross irregularities” and 20 colleges as “other non-functional colleges”. Twelve colleges, which do not have recognition of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), had been recommended for disaffiliation. Only 26 colleges had been recommended for renewal of affiliation, while admissions for 2012-13 in 18 colleges had been recommended for suspension.
While Higher Education principal secretary Rajneesh Goel was unavailable for comment, sources said that the file containing the requests of these 18 colleges have been put on hold for now.