No takers for 47% BEd seats

PATIALA: Not long ago one of the most sought-after course, Bachelor of Education (BEd) has gone out of favour among students across Punjab as nearly 47% seats remain vacant after the final round of centralised counselling that concluded on Tuesday.

The Punjabi University, Patiala, carried out the centralised counselling for BEd course for the current session for seats in all colleges affiliated to it, Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

Coordinator of the counselling Gurpreet Singh Lehal said 12, 743 students had applied for 21,088 seats available in 212 colleges across the state. “Only 11,113 seats could be filled at the end of the final round of counselling, and 9,975 (47.3%) remain vacant,” he said.

Lehal said even the five government colleges, which are in high demand, have 29.25% seats vacant. The 15 governmentaided colleges with 2,350 seats have 44.4% vacant seats, while 48.06% seats of the 18,338 seats offered by 192 private colleges could not be filled. “Four of the private colleges offering 87 seats each for counselling could not admit a single candidate, while 27 colleges could not admit

12, 743 STUDENTS HAD APPLIED FOR 21,088 SEATS AVAILABLE IN 212 COLLEGES; ONLY 11,113 COULD BE FILLED

more than 25% students and 92 colleges have more than 50% seats vacant. Overall, 12 private colleges were able to admit more than 90% students,” he said.

He added that one of the main reasons behind poor response is that earlier it was one-year course and now it takes two years.

“Five years ago, more than 44,000 students would applied for this course and there was tough competition. But now the situation has reversed,” he said. Hardeep Singh, state leader of democratic teachers’ front, said there are no jobs in the education sector. “Why shall students do BEd when thousands of qualified teachers are on road protesting for jobs, pay parity and regular jobs,” he said.

Jasraj Kaur, coordinator of BEd counselling, said, “The government colleges were in great demand in the past, but none of them could fill more than 75% seats this time. The course is more popular among girls with 86.38% of the candidates taking admission being girls,” she said.