More than a third of Mumbai’s FYJC quota seats vacant in 23-24

The vacant seats left after the quota admissions round are not being surrendered and included in the first centralised admissions process round, which means eligible students under the general category cannot secure admission despite available seats

Mumbai: More than 35% of seats under the management and minority quotas for class 11 remained vacant in junior colleges across the city in the 2023-24 academic year. As many as 242 junior colleges in Mumbai failed to secure any quota admissions, while 433 colleges could not cross the 50% mark. What’s worse, these vacant seats were not transferred to the general category, which means they were wasted.

MUMBAI, INIDA - AUGUST 10, 2016 : More than 70,000 students applied in the special round for online admissions to first-year junior college (FYJC) by Tuesday night. Those who missed out can try again on August 18, said officials of the state education department on Wednesday August 10, 2016 in Mumbai, India.

These alarming figures were brought forth by a group of parents and activists in Mumbai ahead of Class 11 admissions beginning next month. The data was obtained through the Maharashtra government’s official portal for First Year Junior College (FYJC) admissions and a report by System Corrective Movement (SYSCOM), a Pune-based organisation working in the education sector.

The matter is not just restricted to Mumbai. In Nagpur, 41% of 56,650 seats remained vacant in the last academic year, according to the SYSCOM report. In Pune, it was 33% of 117,990 seats, 34% of 13,360 seats in Nashik, and 35% of 16,190 seats in Amravati.

Here’s what’s happening: before the start of the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) for general category students, colleges have to first complete a so-called zero round. This includes admissions under the

management (5%), in-house (10%), and minority (50%) quotas. After the zero round is done, the colleges have to update the status of the admission intake on the state government portal before commencing the general admission process.

However, the vacant seats left after the zero round are not being surrendered and included in the first CAP round. This would mean eligible students under the general category cannot secure admission despite available seats.

Vaishali Bafna, chairperson of SYSCOM, has presented her organisation’s detailed report on the matter to Suraj Mandhare, an education commissioner in the Maharashtra government.

“We are now demanding that after completion of the zero round, all seats from the various quotas should be released for the general admission process, which will help accommodate more students in colleges of their choice,” said Bafna.

In a letter to Mandhare, she also highlighted another related concern. “On average, we found 35% management quota, 26% in-house quota and 17% minority quota seats are filled during zero round. If the remaining seats have gone vacant, how will the state government address the issue of surplus teachers from these colleges,” said Bafana.

A senior official from the Maharashtra government’s school education department said, “We will look into this and act after a thorough investigation.”