A month on, deadlock over FYJC admissions continues in Maharashtra

More than a month after the Maharashtra education department stayed admissions to first-year junior colleges (FYJCs) in the state, the admission process is still

More than a month after the Maharashtra education department stayed admissions to first-year junior colleges (FYJCs) in the state, the admission process is still in a deadlock as the department is yet to hear from the state government.

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Officials from the education department said they were still awaiting a nod from the state to restart admissions. “Until that happens, we cannot take any decision. We have no clarity on when that would happen,” said an official from the department.

On September 9, in line with the Supreme Court’s interim stay on the Maratha quota in jobs and education, the state education department stayed the admission process for FYJC until further orders. With this, the second merit list for admissions which was scheduled to be out on September 10 was not released. More than a month after that, admissions are yet to restart leaving over 2.42 lakh students in the lurch in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) alone.

Hundreds of parents of anxious students have been writing to the education department requesting that the admission process be restarted soon. Arvind Tiwari, a city-based parent, recently wrote a letter to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray. “The pandemic has already wreaked havoc on the mental and physical health of students which is compounded by this uncertainty over admissions. The state government should expedite the matter and take a decision to resolve it at the earliest,” Tiwari wrote in the letter.

State education minister Varsha Gaikwad did not respond to calls and messages.