All Stories

The apparent trigger for the proposed move was the allegation that these institutions do not comply with the statutory norms laid down by the state school education department. Of the 3,500 English medium schools in the state, ICSE, CBSE and IB schools number around 500.

BJP legislator Chandrashekar Bawankule raised the issue of private unaided schools, especially English medium, through a calling-attention motion. The motion referred to the exorbitant fees charged by these schools. Many such schools also force students to buy uniforms, books and study material from the institution, he alleged.

Shiv Sena MLA Subhash Desai said two receipts under different heads were given to students by such schools. Summing up the mood of the assembly, Speaker Babasaheb Kupekar directed the state government to discipline these schools at the earliest.

Admitting that many of the board schools were known to charge excess money from parents and to insist that students buy school material from them at higher than market prices, Mushrif said, "We will seek legal opinion from the law and judiciary department on whether students passing out from such defaulting schools can be denied admission in the junior colleges of the state."

The finishing school programme, titled ACE (Association for Competitive Excellence), will be jointly conducted by Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries & Agriculture (MCCIA) and Renaissance Academy for Corporate Excellence (RACE), MCCIA president Madhur Bajaj announced here on Wednesday.

"MCCIA has signed a memorandum of understanding with RACE, a constituent of Renaissance Educational Society. We will conduct the course in the light of the feedback drawn from member industries of MCCIA," Bajaj told reporters.

A sizeable number of students filed applications for change of colleges allotted to them according to the first merit list.

Vaibhav Oswal, who secured 71 per cent landed up with a seat in Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya junior college even though his first three preferences were Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, Symbiosis and the Ness Wadia College of Commerce.

"If we are not getting colleges according to our preference then what is the whole point of centralised admission? I have not taken admission and will wait for the second list," Oswal, who came to file his complaint at the Ness Wadia college told TOI.

The question being raised by college authorities is: Will the government bear the burden for the additional (teaching) appointments made for addressing the excess students?

"Already, our existing per division strength has gone up steadily from 120 to 140 over the last two years," the principal of a leading city college told TOI on Tuesday. "The resultant workload is not taken into consideration by the government vis-a-vis additional appointments and salaries."

Excess allotments are seen as the government's way of pushing the `sought-after' colleges to accept fresh divisions, mostly on a no-grant basis. An unusually high number of SSC students have passed this year.

Post-seat allotments on Monday, the process for confirmation of admission started on Tuesday with a heavy rush of students and their parents at the allotted institutions. At certain places, authorities found it difficult to manage the rush.

At Fergusson College, the process was held up for some time when some parents complained that the college was not issuing them admission forms despite their wards having been allotted a seat there.

The first-of-its-kind centre has been designed to develop specialised focus and skills in high value areas such as telecom, security, automation and asset management.

The centre will be staffed by IBM service management experts from around the world.It will also offer certification and joint education programmes with local universities, access to industry models, best practices and proven methodologies based on IBM's worldwide service management experience.

According to IBM's India Software Lab Vice-President, Ponani Gopalakrishnan, "At India software lab, we encourage the blending of technology and domain expertise with industry relevance.

"Our centres of excellence are designed with the objective of spurring innovation initiatives in partnership with clients and business partners."

This was evident from the first list of Std XI seat allotments, which was released on Monday by the centralised admission process (CAP) joint panel.

All the 51,700 candidates, who had submitted admission forms, have landed a seat and the process for confirmation of admissions, by paying the fees at the allotted institutions, would commence from Tuesday (July 22).

Post-percentile, the cut-off mark (score at which admission closes at a given college) for science stream was as high as 97.58 at the Laxmanrao Apte junior college, while the same at the Fergusson college was 95.49. Last year, the percentage-based cut-offs at these two institutions were 89.54 and 89.38, respectively.

Pune's divisional deputy director (education), G.K. Mhamane, explained that the inflated cut-offs was no true reflection of the net difference between the cut-off marks last year and this year. "The net difference works out to 1.5 to 2 per cent," he said.

Spurred by the feeling that the CBSE and the ICSE boards were more liberal with marks, the state introduced a specific formula-based percentile scheme

The cut-off percentage for Class XI admissions this year has increased by around 2 per cent. This is because of the increase in number of students passing the Class X examination with good percentages. According to the percentile formula, the increase in cut-off percentages is 4 per cent.

Dateline

• July 22-24: Admission to students in first merit list
  
• July 24: First waiting list for vacant seats
  
• July 25, 26: Admission to students in the first waiting list
  
• July 26: Second waiting list
  
• July 28,29: Admission to students in second waiting list
  
• Merit-list available in every junior college (also on www.Punenet.net and www.mh12.com)
  
• Phone numbers of complaint redressal centre: 3231 8726 and 3231 8729.
  
• Maximum fee for unaided division for science stream: Rs 13,000 (Colleges will have to decide fee in consultation with Palak-Shikshak Sangh).

"As there were around 7,000 more applications for the science stream compared to the intake capacity, the state government has increased 1,120 seats in 14 junior colleges. As there are 4,779 students who have applied for science and commerce streams, the students remaining only for science stream will be less," education department deputy director G K Mhamane said at a Press conference today.

Fee chart for new private colleges

• Higher and technical courses: Engineering: Rs 36,000, MBA/MMS: Rs 45,600, MCA: Rs 42,000, Pharmacy diploma: Rs 30,000, Pharmacy degree: Rs 48,000, Polytechnic (Engg): Rs 25,200, Architecture degree: Rs 45,600, Architecture masters: Rs 48,000, Hotel Management: Rs 32,400, B.Ed/B.PEd/M.PEd: Rs 26,400, M.Ed: Rs 36,0000
  
• Health Sciences: Medical: Rs 2,64,000, Dental: Rs 1,13,520, Ayurved: Rs 67,440 , Homoeopathy: Rs 42,000, Physiotherapy: Rs 40,800 , Occupational Therapy: Rs 35,000, Nursing: Rs 54,700

At least 12 new engineering colleges are going functional from this year in the University of Pune (UoP) area of Pune, Nashik and Ahmednagar districts. However, there is no new medical institution in the UoP jurisdiction.

Education Minister Vasant Purke announced this while responding to a discussion on schools and higher technical education and the plight of students, initiated by the opposition parties in the state legislative assembly on Friday.

Assuring that "not a single student will remain without admission this year", Purke said that since the pass percentage of students in the state was higher this year than in 2007, more divisions and more colleges were needed.

He said that while the decision to start more divisions in existing colleges was already taken, the government will go ahead and start 1,600 new colleges from the current academic year. The government was committed to ensuring that each student who passed out of school this year gets a seat in a college of his or her choice.

"According to All India Council for Technical Education ( AICTE ) norms, representation of these subjects should at least be 15-25 per cent. In certain foreign universities, basic sciences get a representation of about 30-40 per cent. While the counter argument is that engineering students should get more exposure in applied sciences, they will only be able to do so if their fundamentals in science is sound," said Narendra Jadhav, Vice Chancellor, at a press conference in the city on Friday.

The engineering faculty has been asked to come up with ways to buttress the science subject representation. It has to be decided whether the new basic science syllabus will be taught in modules over four years or taught at a stretch in the first year itself.

The CAP authorities are in the process of finalising the details, including booklets of cut-off marks and seat distribution, which are to be given to the 550-plus junior colleges. "The process will take a few days and we will release the list on July 21," Mhamane, who heads the CAP, told TOI.

Against a collective admission capacity of 50,565 seats, the CAP has received 49,605 applications. The science and commerce streams have drawn an excess demand in view of the large number of students clearing the SSC exam this year.

Sources said, the authorities were awaiting the outcome of the legal tussle in the Bombay High Court over the state government's decision to introduce the percentile system for normalisation of the SSC marks. The move was to bring the SSC students' performance at par with their counterparts from national boards like CBSE and ICSE.

The high court was expected to settle the issue on Thursday but, the matter has been put off till July 24. "Since there is no stay on the admission process, we decided to go ahead with the release of the list," Mhamane said.

The financial support will be to the extent of Rs 15,000 for those who've passed standard X and Rs 25,000 for those who have passed standard XII.

Speaking to reporters, leader of the house Anil Bhosale and Congress party leader in PMC Aba Bagul said that it was a historic decision taken by the PMC.

The objective is to examine, among other things, the possibility of a hike in the annual scholarship grant, besides an increase in the number of sanctioned scholarship units (one unit is equivalent to one student) and changes in the norms for determining these units.

According to a government resolution (GR) issued on July 11, the study group, headed by director for secondary education M.R. Kadam, has been given two month's time to complete the exercise.

"The Nasscom and the IT firm have offered to provide the course content besides help in operationalising the initiative as well as the training modules," a senior UoP official told TOI on Wednesday.

The implementation part, including conduct of examinations, will be taken care of by the university, he said. Almost 70 per cent of the course component will have an online element, the official said.

Add-on courses refer to studies that enable students to acquire an additional skill of high job potential while simultaneously undertaking their conventional degree studies. As such, the benefits are two-fold and post-degree studies, students are not required to waste precious time in acquiring job skills.

The ISC is the nodal agency for all foreign admissions to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) courses, besides doctoral studies (Ph.D) and certificate programmes at the university-affiliated colleges and recognised institutions.

A large chunk of these international students come under the scholarships granted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), while the rest comprises self-financed students, people of Indian origin (PIO) and non-resident Indians (NRIs) from the west Asia and the south-east Asia.

"This year, the centre has so far received 3,000 pleas from over 80 countries for UG and PG courses and an estimated 1,000 more for certificate programmes like ELICIS and short-term courses, and doctoral studies," an ISC official told TOI on Wednesday. Post-scrutiny, these pleas are expected to be shortlisted to overall 3,000 provisional admissions, the official said.