Maharashtra to open 1,600 colleges to clear admission problems!!!

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Government has decided to open 1,600 new colleges all over the state this year to provide relief to thousands of students who have recently passed out of school but have not secured admission to junior colleges.

Education Minister Vasant Purke announced this while responding to a discussion on schools and higher technical education and the plight of students, initiated by the opposition parties in the state legislative assembly on Friday.

Assuring that "not a single student will remain without admission this year", Purke said that since the pass percentage of students in the state was higher this year than in 2007, more divisions and more colleges were needed.

He said that while the decision to start more divisions in existing colleges was already taken, the government will go ahead and start 1,600 new colleges from the current academic year. The government was committed to ensuring that each student who passed out of school this year gets a seat in a college of his or her choice.

The list of the new colleges with the number of seats, their locations and the courses offered would soon be announced and displayed on the state government website, he said.

Sky high cut-offs in Mumbai colleges leave students pondering

Mumbai: Even 90 percent did not seem enough for students aspiring for a junior college seat after the fifth cut-off list was declared here on Wednesday.

At some of Mumbai's well-known colleges, the difference between the first and fifth cut-off list was only one percentile.

Mumbai's most reputed college for Science stream, D.G. Ruparel College, lowered its cut-off by a mere one percentile in the fifth cut-off.

The cut-off for the first admission list at the college was 96.55 and for the fifth list it was 95.38 percentile, much to the disappointment of many aspirants.

St. Xavier's College too said the same story. The cut-off for Humanities stream dipped by just one percentile from 90 in the first list, to 89 in the second list.

The cut-off for the first merit list at H.R. College of Commerce and Economics was 91.59 percentile, which dipped to 89.8 in the fifth list.

The State Education Department has, however, said that it may consider a second round of admissions if seats remain vacant even after the first round.

Sheila Tiwari, Deputy Director of Education, Mumbai division said, "We have asked all colleges to prepare a list of vacant seats after admission procedures are completed on Thursday."