Students and teachers of First Year Junior College (FYJC) have demanded the state School Education Department to start the academic year. The academic year has been delayed by almost three months. Classes generally start by August-September.
Currently, the online admission process for FYJC is still going on. Three general merit rounds have been completed till now and one special round-1 merit list was declared on December 28, 2020. Over 1.35 lakh students have confirmed admissions in FYJC after the completion of the three general merit rounds in Mumbai region.
Teachers of junior colleges have urged the state to start the academic year as soon as possible. Manjiri Surve, a teacher said, "We will have to rush with the syllabus if the state does not start the academic year soon. The academic year with regular online lectures that was supposed to start in August-September has not begun yet as the admission process is still going on."
The FYJC admission process was halted midway from September 9 to November 26, 2020, following the Supreme Court’s (SC) interim stay on the reservation in government jobs and educational institutions for candidates belonging to the Maratha community or Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBC) category in Maharashtra.
Recently, on December 24, the state cabinet allowed the SEBC category or Maratha quota students to seek admission under the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) category with a 10 per cent seat reservation.
Further, students said that the admission process has been delayed and prolonged due to the lack of timely decision-making by the state government. Rahul Josh, a student said, "We have been waiting for regular online lectures to begin since August. But the admission process was delayed due to the inefficiency of the state government." While, Manali Pandit, another student said, "We will have less time to prepare for semester examinations if the online lectures do not start anytime soon."
Over 1,35,466 students have secured admissions against 3,20,390 seats in 844 junior colleges in the Mumbai region after the completion of the third general merit round. Out of 1,35,466 students, 74,962 students have secured seats under Commerce, 44,713 under Science, 14,283 under Arts and 1,508 under HSVC (Vocational) streams in FYJC.
