BHUBANESWAR: Close to 50 colleges in the state saw zero admissions in several subjects including those being offered in self-financing mode in 2023-24 academic year. Besides, six self-financing degree colleges did not get any students at all for the academic year.
Recently, the Higher Education department wrote to the four regional directorates of education, seeking explanation from degree colleges regarding zero admissions in both regular subjects and self-financing institutions. For 2023-24 academic session, there are 1,047 degree colleges in the state which are aided, non-aided, government-run and self-financing. Here, apart from regular courses like Physical Science, Biological Science, Arts and Commerce, many others are offered in self-financing mode. Higher officials of the department said in many of the colleges, there have been zero admissions to various subjects including Arts and Physical Science after all rounds of admissions.
Consider this, at Gayatri Plus III Science college at Balangir, there were no admissions to 32 seats in the Physical Science stream. In Sambalpur’s Badriprasad degree college, no student took admission in Commerce stream. Some of the other colleges are Government Women’s colleges at Titilagarh and Sundargarh, Government Autonomous college of Rourkela.
This apart, there are 68 self-financing degree colleges in the state and of them, six have been witnessing zero admissions for the last two academic years. The colleges are CUTM-Balangir, Micro Solutions Computer Academy college at Balasore, Madhusudan college at Dhenkanal, Gurukul Kalinga college at Jajpur town, Baba college at Jatni and Prince Science college at Morada in Mayurbhanj.
These colleges have sanctioned strength of 64 to 360 seats but no students have taken admissions in them since 2022. Apart from seeking explanations from all these self-financing institutions on zero admissions, the department of Higher Education has restricted admissions to three of the colleges at Dhenkanal, Jajpur town and Jatni for the 2024-25 academic year. Higher officials of the department said the primary reason behind zero admission to self-financing colleges is substandard quality of education and high fees.
No takers
Several colleges saw zero admissions to various subjects including Arts and Physical Science
Of 68 self-financing degree colleges in state, six have been witnessing zero admissions for last two academic years
The department of Higher Education has restricted admissions to three colleges at Dhenkanal, Jajpur town and Jatni for 2024-25