Pune Campus Watch: As colleges start undergraduate admissions sans CBSE and ICSE students, SPPU steps in

Taking cognisance of the situation, authorities at the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) said a proposal will be tabled during its next academic council meeting on July 23 to grant a 10 per cent ‘special quota’, or additional seats, to all affiliated colleges to accommodate non-state board students. An admission cell will also be started by the university to oversee the admissions of these students to colleges of their choice albeit as per their merit and the cut-off marks of selected colleges, they added.

“In any case, if aspirants are more for a particular course, we allow colleges to ask for a 10 per cent extra quota for that year. This year, in addition to that, we will be allowing a 10 per cent special quota for CBSE/ICSE/IB board students. We did a study of the admission pattern, generally, CBSE and ICSE students together take up about seven per cent of seats and another two per cent are IB board students. Hence the decision to allot 10 per cent extra seats,” said Sanjeev Sonawane, pro vice-chancellor, SPPU.

“The resolution will be put up before the academic council and also to start an admission cell for these students. However, we will assist with those admissions which fall above the cut-off for colleges for the courses applied for and as per rules of reservation,” added Sonawane.

Dr N S Umarani, the principal of Garware College where orientation lectures took place last week for first-year BBA students, said that they did a detailed study of the last five years regarding admissions of CBSE, ICSE, and IB students. “Generally, the trend is that not more than five to 10 per cent seats are taken by students of CBSE/ICSE/IB in traditional courses like BA, BCom, BSc and so on. So, as per the demand, we have kept aside those many seats and did the admissions for the others. When their results are announced, we will do those admissions too,” said Umarani.

Dr Savita Datar, principal of the S P College, also confirmed that the admissions in the college are nearing completion but students of other boards, apart from the state board, can be accommodated in the 10 per cent extra quota allotted by the university.

Meanwhile, college principals explained the reason they did not wait for the CBSE, ICSE, and IB board exam results to be announced to complete admissions or start lectures.

Rajendra Zunjarrao, principal of Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce, said, “For the last two years, the academic calendar has gone haywire due to the Covid situation. Last-minute changes to the schedule for conducting lectures, examinations, and delays in results had resulted in a lot of confusion. Now that the situation is getting back to normal, we are trying to bring things on track,” said Zunjarrao.

“Since the percentage of these students is not more than 10 per cent, we can’t delay the entire batch. Hence, we have decided to start the lectures, later when these students will join in, we will hold additional lectures for them to catch up. And as of now, even the teachers will go at a slow pace,” he added.

Zunjarrao said while lectures at Modern College were to begin on July 16, after the UGC circular the college has decided it will wait till July 21 to start the lectures.