Students, colleges spar over seat cancellation

Students say colleges not cancelling admissions on portal

MUMBAI: Students who want to cancel their admission in junior colleges so that they can get a seat in an institution of their choice are having trouble doing so despite the state education department making the provision for the same in the firstcome, first-served (FCFS) round, which is underway.

The education department has allowed students, who have already secured admission in a college, to cancel their admission from the college and apply afresh in the FCFS round. However, students have complained that colleges are not cancelling their admissions on the portal even as their documents were returned and a cancellation slip was issued to them.

“I have secured 91% and had taken admission in a Matunga college for the Science stream. I later changed my mind and decided to take up Commerce, thus, cancelling my admission. While the college said that it had cancelled my admission, the portal still shows admitted against my name. With this, I missed out on the first phase of the FCFS round,” said a student on the condition of anonymity. Another student, who had wrongly filled

his marks, was allotted admission in a junior college in Bandra. The college granted admission to the student without verifying his original marksheet. Once the student started attending college, the college realised their mistake and cancelled his admission. The student is still not able to apply afresh as the college is unable to cancel seats on the portal at this point.

The principal of the Bandra college said, “We found that the

student wrongly entered his marks only recently while documents verification. We have cancelled the admission from our end but are now hoping for the portal to open for cancellations to be able to register it online.”

A Borivali junior college is not returning the original documents to a student who had approached them for admission. “When we visited the college, we didn’t like it so decided to wait for the next rounds. But the authorities told

us to keep our documents with them so that we could come back if we didn’t get a seat in the next rounds. They are now refusing to return them,” said a mother.

An official from the state education department said, “We are taking individual queries and addressing them one by one. Students should not panic and report such issues to us.” Such students can re-apply for FCFS round 2, the schedule for which would be declared by September 4.