Dud colleges stymie students

MUMBAI: While the city students are looking for admissions in the junior colleges, which has been made completely online, a major struggle for them is to ascertain the authenticity of these colleges while choosing them through the online admission portal. Students complain that by the name of the college, their unique codes or pictures of the college building, it is difficult to understand how the said colleges function.

One such example is the Vidya Niketan Junior College that is said to have Commerce and Science stream for the first year and second year junior college students. However, when The Asian Age visited the college on Monday, the ground reality remains that the college is functioning inside a civic school run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) named Dhanji Devshi Municipal Marathi School at Ghatkopar east. Inside this school, there are four rooms reserved for the college students of Vidya Niketan college – two on the first floor and other two on the third floor.

While talking to the students of SYJC, it came to light that the ones who took admission in the college online were clueless about the state of the college. “I have listed the name of the college in the admission form as by its name and Google search, it looked okay and moreover it is near my coaching class. However, when I came here for admission, it turned out to be a civic school but since the name is being listed in the online process, I decided to take admission,” said a student who travels from Vikhroli to Ghatkopar for this college. Another student, further said, “I’m a Science student and hence we need laboratories for practical lectures. It turned to be the college using the school’s science lab for our lectures and experiments.”

Apart from this college, there are reportedly several other colleges which are bogus or falsely registered or sometimes don’t even have a registration from the state education department. Hence, the department officials have recommended the students to verify the college by any means or medium before listing the college’s name in the admission form.