Guidelines issued for additional 20% seats in arts, science colleges in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: After the announcement to add 20% additional seats in Arts and Science colleges, the Higher Education Department has issued guidelines to the colleges for the implementation.

The Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy announced that a situation has arisen that even several students, who secured good marks in Class XII board exams could not get admission to Arts and Science courses and therefore it was decided to increase 20% seat capacity in all government colleges and 15% in government-aided colleges besides 10% in self-financing Arts and Science institutions.

According to the guidelines, additional admissions should be made based on the rank list, which was issued by the Directorate of Collegiate Education recently. The conditions of the Higher Education Department further said that if the colleges want to add more students, the management of institutions should not insist on the government recruitment of further faculty members.

A senior official from the directorate said that in addition, all the colleges were also instructed that they should get prior permission from their affiliated universities before admitting additional students.

“This additional admission will be applicable only for this academic year,” he said adding that the state government would review its decision year-on-year. The official said the students could get spot admissions in all the colleges according to their merit list. “They could also approach the student’s facilitation centres, which were established across all the districts, in this regard,” he said.