Improve the admission process and do not make us suffer, say FYJC students
Starting from technical glitches, websites hanging, server crashes, site being shut down, confusion about application and reapplication, long queues and merit list delay, students applying for FYJC (First Year Junior College) admissions have faced confusion at every step. The major factor is that the entire process is managed by the state government so both students and junior colleges have no say in it.
Students, parents and college authorities are not only irked but fed up of this admission process. Ankit Desai, a student, said, “The state government website for FYJC admission has always faced technical errors. This year it just aggravated to another level as the website was shut for one day and the merit list was delayed by seven hours.”
All that students could do or had to do was wait. Desai added, “The state education department is not at all helpful. They did not respond to our complaints. So all we could do was wait for a miracle to happen for the site to start functioning.”
Secondly, the students do not know whom to approach in times of crisis. Amaan Shaikh, a student, said, “We spent hours uploading our admission forms. It took almost two days to upload both the first and second part of the admission form where the entire process should be completed within 30 to 60 minutes.”
The entire process is online so the junior colleges could not do anything to help. Marie Fernandes, Principal of St Andrew’s College, said, “Every year we face the same confusion and delay in the admission process. The students and college staff have to suffer as they have to deal with the admissions at the grass root level.”
A professor said, “The state government chalks out the entire process so we cannot do anything to help students. The schools guide the students about the application process.”
Parents were worried as they did not know where or how to complain. Parents said, “In times of crisis we did not know how to approach the state government. We wrote complaint letters to the education department which were not responded.”
The students mentioned various improvements or precautions that can be taken to prevent such errors next year. The students said, “If the entire process is online then first of all they should have a high speed internet and server. There should be a window where we can ask our queries and get answers for the same.”
The offline minority document submission added to the confusion. “The entire process should either be online or completely offline. The minority and other quota document submissions should be done online too,” the students added.
The state government helped the students by extending the dates. But the text messages of seat allocations sent to few students who made it to the merit list were also haywire.
Students added, “There are some of us who have scored well but have not got selected in the merit list. Our preference of colleges may have acted as a factor.”
The major factor is that the entire process is managed by the state government so both students and junior colleges have no say in it