HYDERABAD: There was been a lukewarm response to undergraduate admissions with the completion of the second phase of Degree Online Services Telangana (DOST) 2019.
While 70,153 students have exercised their web options in the first phase, in the second phase only 31,790 authentications have been made.
This year 3.8 lakh seats are up for grabs in degrees colleges across the State.
P Laxma Reddy, chairman, Association for Strengthening of Private Initiative in Rural Education (ASPIRE), blamed delay in Eamcet counselling for the poor response.
“Students who have secured ranks in Eamcet won’t get their choice of course or college. And those who want to take their decision after knowing what they are being offered in engineering will eventually come to DOST. A large number of students have also appeared for supplementary exams and are awaiting their results and will also move from MPC or BiPC to Commerce at degree level,” he added.
In any case, Reddy said that the total occupancy of seats in degree colleges will not exceed 2 lakh, as was in DOST 2018.
“Even those who join the course, 8-10 per cent of them drop out by the end of the first semester,” said G Nagaiah, president, Private Degree Colleges Association.
He added that it’s not just admissions, the Telangana State Council of Higher Education is not interested in degree education.
Final year degree students have lost the opportunity to apply in national institutions as the degree exams are still underway, he alleged.
Most institutions ask for provisional certificates by the beginning of July, he added.
“By making the admission process online, the entire process should be completed in a shorter time but here exams are going on till June and the new session begins only in September and by that time PG admissions elsewhere in the country would close,” he said.
Prof R Limbadri, convenor of DOST and vice-chairman TSCHE, denied that there is fall in numbers as compared to the previous years.
TSCHE to bring uniformity in Under Graduate framework
The TSCHE meanwhile has decided to introduce some changes from this academic year in a bid to make the UG courses more relevant and in-line with the industry requirement.
CBCS will be revised this year along with the introduction new framework for the syllabus. “The total course credits will be 150 words from the 2019-20 academic years onwards for all BA, BCom and BSc courses. In the Grading system also we found that some have 90-100 as A+ and other 80 - 100 for the same grade, making scaling of marks difficult,” explained Prof Limbadri.
Taking a step in this direction OU, for instance, has decided to provide online courses through MOOCs in data science Artificial intelligence, computer programming, and even soft skills.
“The focus was on bringing such changes in the curriculum that would aid students to get employment and make them industry ready,” said Prof Ramchandram, VC.