BHUBANESWAR: In a rollback of norms, the Higher Education department on Saturday allowed students who have already taken admission to degree colleges in the first phase of undergraduate (UG) counselling to take part in the second phase too.
Announcing this, Higher Education minister Suryabanshi Suraj said the decision was taken in greater interest of the students.
For the current academic year, the department had mandated that under Students Academic Management System (SAMS), those already admitted to degree colleges as per their choice in the first phase of admission cannot take part in the second phase of admission.
Second phase was meant for only the students who did not apply for admission, did not take admission to any colleges or those who had appeared in the Plus II supplementary examination.
The department, however, made changes in the Plus II admission guidelines on Friday following demands by students who claimed many entered the wrong college options in the common application form (CAF) due to lack of knowledge about admission guidelines and its ‘freeze and slide’ option.
“Even if a student has taken admission in the first phase, he or she will be given chance to take part in the second. This change has been made keeping students’ interest in mind. The SAMS website has been reopened for necessary action,” the minister said. The admission guidelines formulated for this academic season will be strictly followed from the next academic year, he added.
While three rounds of first phase admission have been completed, students can apply for the second phase till September 3. Teaching in colleges has already started on August 1.
Officials in the department said previously too, students who secured admission in colleges in the first phase were allowed to take part in the second, third and fourth phases of admission.
“However, we noticed that such students were only jumping from one college to another, which did not contribute to increasing enrolment in any manner. Hence, we decided that this year onwards, students who take admission in the first phase will not be allowed to look for options in the second phase,” said an official.
This was aimed at streamlining the admission process which every year stretched from August to either December or January due to multiple phases of admissions. “As admissions continued till December or January, semester examinations were also delayed,” he added.
Currently, the first phase admissions are over and so far, 97,508 seats are vacant. There are 1,056 degree colleges in the state with a students’ strength of 2.74 lakh across six streams of arts, commerce, physical science and biological science besides self-financing courses and Sanskrit.