Mumbai: The degree colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai (MU) likely to increase the intake capacity this year as admissions to Undergraduate (UG) programmes are going to be competitive with an increased number of students who have cleared Class 12.
The state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant has instructed universities to give adequate approval in the intake capacity of courses to accommodate the rise in demand this year.
Samant said, "Compared to last year, 33,908 more students have cleared the HSC. Considering this rise in number of students, I have given instructions to all universities that colleges should be granted additional intake capacity to accommodate the rise in demand."
As online registration for admission to various UG programmes under MU is going on, the varsity has directed degree colleges to accomodate all students.
A senior official of MU said, "Degree colleges should increase the number of seats and offer a wide variety of subject choices via online mode for students. The intake capacity for most preferred courses should increase."
Authorities of degree colleges said they can accomodate additional students as lectures are being conducted via online mode. Ravikanth Kadke, a senior professor, said, "In online lectures, we have the flexibility to accomodate more students and divide them into batches. We are seeing a trend where students are opting for "cross-study" programmes wherein they prefer certain subjects from different streams."
Madhureema Jaiswal, another professor, said, "Non-professional UG courses such as Bachelor of Arts, Multimedia, Management Studies, Finance, Psychology, Sociology and Information Technology (IT) have been receiving good response since the last few years. Students should be given multiple options and choice of subjects."
