Education minister Bratya Basu has said that the department will reassess the number of undergraduate seats offered by government and aided colleges and reevaluate the actual demand among aspirants.

The reassessment has become necessary because lakhs of college seats remained vacant over the past few years.

This year, after the department carried out a centralised online admission process, four lakh seats out of nine lakh remained vacant.

The department was forced to ask the colleges to fill the vacant seats through their portals after September 7.

The minister said the department needs a comprehensive reassessment based on their experience over the past two to three years.

“We have allowed the colleges to fill the vacant seats independently after September 7.... We must reassess the seat count based on what we have experienced over the past three years. However, some colleges have been demanding an increase in intake. So we have to make a comparative and balanced assessment,” the education minister said during a press conference at Bikash Bhavan on September 5.

The minister said this when asked whether they had plans to reduce the seat count considering the number of vacant college seats.

The department started receiving applications through its centralised online portal on June 24 for 461 colleges and 16 state-aided universities offering 7,217 courses for a little over 9 lakh seats.

Sources in the department said till Friday, close to 5 lakh candidates had taken
admission.

Until last year, colleges enrolled students through their portals right after the publication of the Plus-II results.

One of the stated purposes behind the launch of the online portal was to ensure that fewer seats remained vacant but the scenario has hardly improved.

Asutosh Ghosh, former chairman of the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education and the former vice-chancellor of Calcutta University, said there was a need to rationalise the number of seats.

This year, 6,79,784 examinees passed the state higher secondary examinations.

“Statistics show that five lakh students enrol in undergraduate courses in colleges. Therefore, there was a need to rationalise the seats if the count of vacant seats had to be reduced,” said Ghosh, who quit the council last month after being appointed the vice-chancellor of Green University.

Anupam Basu, former professor of computer science at IIT Kharagpur and former director of NIT Durgapur, said a large number of candidates in Bengal enrolled for the undergraduate programmes in the hope that they could apply for the post of assistant teachers in the government-aided secondary and higher secondary schools after clearing the recruitment tests conducted by the school service commission.

“Following complaints of irregularities in the appointment of teachers which has led to a barrage of petitions filed against the shoddy appointments, the SSC has not been able to hold any recruitment examinations over the past eight years. Why will these candidates enrol for colleges? They would rather find it lucrative to join food delivery platforms or do sundry jobs after the school leaving examinations as this ensures some earning,” said Basu, now the Raja Ramanna Chair Professor at Jadavpur University.

Basu said launching new-age courses could trigger interest among potential students. “But such courses require huge financial support. The colleges cannot do it unless supported by the government,” he added.