TSCHE to ease rules for online admissions

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Council of Higher Education (TSCHE) is contemplating to ease rules for online admissions in degree colleges across the State. To prevent irregularities in admissions, an online system was introduced in 2017 for admitting students to various courses. The rule lays down that only those students who take part in the online admission process after registering their names are eligible for admission. As several students could not register in time for various reasons, many seats remaining vacant.

“Nearly 1.2 lakh seats remained vacant during the academic year of 2017-18 because students did not enroll themselves,” a senior official of the TSCHE said, pointing out that in various universities nearly 7,000 students could not get seats in the courses they wanted.

TSCHE chairman Prof T Papi Reddy said this kind of situation had come to the fore, because no student was allowed to take admission in any of the degree courses other than through the online process of admissions.

This rigid rule has resulted in the colleges admitting a mere 7,000 students, though there are more than 1.2 lakh seats in various degree courses across the State.

Against this background, and following several representations received from colleges, it was proposed to earmark 10 per cent of seats in various degree courses for admitting students who approach the colleges outside the online system. This would help colleges which are offering good courses but are not able to get the required strength of admissions to run the courses.

Also, this will open a window for those students who could not get through the online process of admissions to join the kind of courses they wanted. Meanwhile, the State government has reportedly expressed its willingness to allow the new proposal.

The actual reason for opening the 10 per cent window is that the government would get relief as students admitted outside the online system are not eligible for fee reimbursement, the sources said.