PAU counselling goes offline as few turn up during online process

Students say that the reason local colleges are not finding many takers this season is because more and more students are trying to go abroad for studies

After not getting many takers during online counselling, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) on Monday started a three-day on-campus admission process for undergraduate courses.

Counselling session in progress. (Harsimar Pal Singh/HT)

The second counselling for BSc (honours) agriculture at the Institute of Agriculture was held on the first day of the offline process.

Around 35 out of 80 seats in BSc agriculture were left vacant during the first round of online counselling.

Many students who got admission even failed to submit the fees. In the previous years, cutthroat competition used to be witnessed over seats in BSc agriculture.

As many as 29 out of a total of 60 seats in BSc horticulture were left vacant during the online process. There were no takers for BTech biotechnology, microbiology, food technology while, there were few for MSc botany and MSc biochemistry courses.

Students say that the reason local colleges are not finding many takers this season is because more and more students are trying to go abroad for studies.

Navdeep Singh, a city resident who had appeared for the counselling, said that better pay scale and permanent residency (PR) after the completion of graduation courses are some of the reasons behind students opting to study abroad instead of here.

Gurpreet Singh from Mansa also shared a similar view. “Prerequisite of every student is to get a job after graduation. But in our country, either they get paid less or do not get a job at all. So, opting to study abroad seems a safer option,” he said.

PAU registrar RS Sidhu said that the online process had been adopted keeping in mind the Covid guidelines but it was observed that many students who had applied for the seats did not submit the fees so it was decided to conduct the counselling on campus.