NO CLARITY ON ADMISSION: TN polytechnic course aspirants left in lurch
With the Tamil Nadu government issuing guidelines for admissions to Class 12 without allocating marks for SSLC, more than one lakh students who aspire to join polytechnic courses every year after Class 10 have been left in the lurch as the Higher Education Department is yet to issue an admission road map for them.
Chennai
Every year, about 10% of about 8.5-odd lakh students who secure a pass in SSLC exams opt for polytechnic courses in 520 colleges, including 80 government and aided institutions.
At least 170 courses are offered under the Directorate of Technical Education (DOTE) in these colleges. A senior official from the DOTE said that first-year admissions for polytechnic courses were delayed for 2021-2022 since the government had announced that it would allocate marks for Class 10 students who were declared all pass due to the pan-demic.
He also pointed out that the new admissions to polytechnic colleges this academic year should have started by this time with student’s admission process, including distribution of applications. Polytechnic College Lecturers and Stu-dents Welfare Association secretary D Sampath Kumar claimed that the same formula which was introduced for getting Class 11 admissions will not work out for polytechnic admissions since government and government-aided schools could adopt between 10% to 15% additional ad-missions.
“The increase in the intake should be approved by AICTE for us,” he added. He added that even if they got approval from AICTE, lab facilities would have to be improved to accommodate ex-tra students as courses were heavily dependent on practical classes. “Even if the government comes out with an entrance test, it should be common for both government and private colleges,” Kumar added.
Tami Nadu Teachers Association president P K Ilamaran said the government’s delay in announcing admission procedure for technical education would create stress among students who want to take up polytechnic courses. He added that an entrance exam for polytechnic admission would be unacceptable and against the government policy.
New system to choose Class 11 stream Following opposition from various quarters, including political parties, the State government on Wednesday with-drew its announcement on conducting entrance exams if applications to join Class 11 for a particular stream in government and government-aided schools were beyond the admission capacity.
In its latest circular, the School Education Department said that if the demand for either Science or Commerce or Vocational stream was beyond the intake capacity, admissions should be held based on Class 9 annual exam marks. The other guidelines that the government announced on Tuesday would be retained
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