Assam: Online admission of UG forms hit hurdle – Times of India

For a large number of meritorious students from the northeast, Cotton has been the first choice for undergraduate studies. But this year, along with the bachelor degree courses, the university has not been able to open the online form submission for even higher secondary (HS) first-year applicants after a week of the announcement of the Class X board results.

“We have major or honours courses and without an admission test, it’s not possible to enrol students merely on the basis of statistical formula based results. Since the higher education directorate in Assam has asked government-run institutions not to charge fees during the process of submitting admission forms, it’s difficult for us to open the online portal for admission. A certain amount of fees are required to conduct the entrance tests and meet other expenditures,” a senior official of CU told TOI on Saturday.

Initially, there were reports of technical difficulties hindering the online admission process in higher education institutions, but of late, lack of clarity from the state education department has been seen as the reason for this stalemate.

Even in the B Borooah College, another leading college in the state, the form submission process came to a halt a few days ago and the college authority blamed a technical glitch for the disruption. The college website reads that filling up of forms for online admission is going on for HS (arts, science, commerce), BA, BSc, BBA, BSc (IT). It also says that details of the admission schedule will be notified on the college website soon.

Amid this confusion, Assam director of higher education, Dharma Kanta Mili, told TOI that the minutes for college admissions will be finalized by the directorate by Saturday. However, managing the resources for online admission has created difficulties for the colleges after the directorate barred them from charging any fees for online form submission or selling offline forms.

Further, a few days ago, the Assam Higher Secondary Education Council (AHSEC) directed all institutions affiliated with it to create their profiles by providing requisite details in the portal DARPAN. AHSEC stated that after the profiles are created, students will be able to apply online for admission to different institutions from August 11 to August 25. This has confused the students who have already submitted their admission forms through the websites of some colleges.

Gauhati Commerce College (GCC) started receiving online admission forms for HS first year and B. Com. first semester from August 4. Though August 18 midnight was the cut-off period for the submission of online forms, the dates of admission are yet to be notified. But GCC principal Homeswar Kalita on Saturday said that submission of HS forms has been temporarily suspended for a number of reasons.