Many seats in the Bachelor of Education (BEd) colleges affiliated to Sri Dev Suman University in the State are sure to remain vacant as less numbers of students have qualified the entrance examination of the University than total vacancies available.
The colleges affiliated to the university have 2600 seats for the B.Ed. students out of these 50 per cent seats are reserved under the management quota which leaves 1300 seats which these colleges fill by the BEd entrance examination of the university. Only 1,745 students applied for the entrance examination this year out of them 1466 appeared in the examinations. After the assessment university found 1133 students eligible for admissions in the BEd courses and released their merit list. The women candidates outnumber the male candidates in the merit list as only 257 male candidates have passed against 876 female candidates.
The University would now declare the dates of the counseling where these candidates would be offered colleges on the basis of the merit. Hundreds of seats in the colleges are expected to remain vacant this year as many students tend to take admission in the government colleges only. The President of Association of Self financed educational institute of Uttarakhand Sunil Agarwal said that the university should change the examination pattern in which it adopts a minimum qualifying mark criterion. He said that neighboring states like Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh declare the merit list of the all the students which appeared in the examination.
The private colleges of the state would feel the pinch as hundreds of seats in them are expected to remain vacant this year. The less number of applicants this year reflect the trend that the students are not interested to do B.Ed. Retired government school Principal, U S Gusain said that the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE) has made it mandatory that to teach in the primary schools the candidate should have Diploma in Elementary Education (DEl. Ed). “This decision of NCTE means that BEd is no longer necessary to become primary teacher and since primary schools contribute maximum number of teaching vacancies the interest of students in getting BEd degree has decreased,” he explained.