BHUBANESWAR: The State government on Tuesday announced application process for admission to Plus II courses at higher secondary schools will start from August 12. It has also decided against any hike in admission and tuition fees for this academic session.
School and Mass Education minister Samir Ranjan Dash said the admission process will be conducted through SAMS portal and the detailed schedule will be released by the department soon. He said the number of seats in higher secondary schools have been increased by over 50,000 for the 2021-22 academic session. He said applications had been received from different higher secondary schools for a hike of around 69,000 seats. However, after examining the applications, the government has decided to increase the seats by 54,900.
While the government has allowed a hike of 38,000 seats in Arts against the demand for 40,000, the seats for Science were increased by 15,000 against the plea for 25,000. Similarly, in Commerce stream, the number of seats were increased by 3,900 against the demand for 4,000.
Around 6.07 lakh students have cleared the Class X examination this year against 6.03 lakh seats available in higher secondary schools, ITIs, and government and private diploma institutes. The increase in Plus II seats will increase the overall seat strength at higher secondary level to around 6.58 lakh.
The decision on fees was taken following instructions by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in view of the hardships faced by people due to the pandemic. It will also be applicable to managements of autonomous and self-financing schools which charge additional fees for college development.