Mumbai: Students raise objection to TISS’ qualifying criteria for upcoming entrance exam

The latest notification released by the administration of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) regarding the admission to master’s courses at the institute, has met with criticism from students.

The notification released on December 3 mentions the two-stage process— TISS national entrance test (TISSNET) followed by the TISS programme aptitude test (TISS-PAT) along with an online personal interview.

It further states that TISSNET will shortlist candidates for stage-two, therefore the institute will not apply any reservation rules for the qualifying exam. The institute’s Progressive Students Front (PSF-TISS) has called this move unjust to students from the marginalised section.

“TISS-NET is conducted to shortlist candidates to stage two based on TISS-NET marks and the ratio on the number of seats announced for individual programmes under each category. Hence, for the shortlisting process, no reservation rules will be applied. All rules related to reservation of seats under different categories and priorities will be applied only at the time of final seat allocation through merit/wait list,” states the admission notification.

PK Shajahan, dean of academics, TISS told HT that admission rules and reservation policy this year remain the same as the last. “The same ratio of candidates from each separate category is shortlisted at stage one, hence there’s no prejudice. In addition to this, candidates from all categories are considered in the open merit list before being considered for each of their respective categories, thereby giving everyone an equal opportunity in admissions,” said Shajahan.

“There is no change in the admission rules and reservation process this year from previous years. The same ratio of candidates from each category separately is shortlisted at this stage as in previous years and hence no prejudice is caused to anyone,” he added.

In an Instagram post late on Thursday, members of PSF-TISS called this move ‘unconstitutional’. “Even if the institute makes separate lists at the last stage of the admissions process, students from the weaker sections have a good chance of getting eliminated in the first round itself if there is no reservation applied. Our concern is, with this move, candidates will be filtered in stage one and this will leave seats in reserved categories vacant during the admission process as there won’t be any takers,” said a member of PSF.