In a bid to fill up seats, degree colleges are resorting to various methods like waiving off the premium on management quota seats and in some cases
even counselling students into taking admission to traditional courses over distance education institutes.
According to academicians, this has been the situation over the past few years, since the preferences of students shifted from traditional arts and commerce courses to professional courses like banking, finance, insurance, among others.
According to Gaurav Bhatia, a student from a reputed college in Bandra who applied for a
transfer to the Institute of Distance and Open Learning (IDOL) after the FYBCom results were declared in May, the
college tried to coax him to stay by offering him sops like waiving off the attendance criteria and also waiving off the premium on the unaided seat, which he had taken while taking admission.
“I was surprised when the college authorities tried to convince me to not taking the transfer to IDOL which I opted for as I had taken up a job. They told me that the college would try to accommodate me and would make arrangements for me to attend college at the time of project submission,” said Bhatia.
When asked, a principal of a college requesting anonymity, said that dwindling number of students was forcing colleges to coax students to continue till the final year.
“With traditional courses fast becoming passé among the students, we are able to fill up only 50-60 per cent of the seats. The shortfall severely affects the working of the college and hence we have to try and convince students to stay back,” said the principal.
Speaking about the trend, Dr M.S. Kurhade, principal DTSS College said that students’ preferences are seeing a shift as technical
courses offered better job opportunities. “Many colleges have been forced to reduce the number of divisions because of this,” he said.