Mumbai: Reeling under pressure, the state education department has orally agreed to allow 1,700 students to sit for HSC board exam next year, whose admissions were done offline against rules, while making it clear that the concerned colleges will be fined. The department’s assurance came on Wednesday. On September 21, colleges, which had given offline admissions to these students, had received a notice from the education department threatening them that the students will not be allowed to sit for the HSC exams.
The notice states: “The students who had taken offline admission in 2016-17 will not be allowed to sit for the board exam in March 2018”. Questioning the notice, Congress MLA Amin Patel has written a letter to the education department asking the government to allow the students to appear for the exam. “This is ridiculous as offline admission was allowed that year. Now with this notice, the future of 1700 students from 86 colleges of Mumbai has become uncertain. The government will have to take positive step for the students,” Mr Patel said.
State education minister Vinod Tawde said that students would not suffer. “We will ensure that the students will not suffer but we will fine the institutions,” Mr Tawde said.
Reacting on the entire matter, principal Suhas Pednekar of Ruia College said that there was scope for offline admissions last year. “There was a scope for offline admissions in case of vacancies left. I do not know how the colleges did that. But this year admissions were conducted online and there was no question of offline,” he said.
Maharashtra College principal Siraj Chougle whose college received the notice said that he was ready to pay fine but the students should be allowed to give HSC exams.
“There are two things in this problem — one the offline quota was 120 students per division and online was 100 due to which more students were admitted. Also, many students cancel admissions later so we admitted more students. However, last year, there were no cancellations. Let me also clear that we do not have management seats and do not accept donations,” Mr Chougle said.
