The state-run centralised undergraduate admission portal will open by the end of May or early June, an official of the higher education department said on Saturday.
Minority, autonomous and private colleges have already begun their admission season from early May.
An official of the education department said they were taking time to open the admission portal covering state-run colleges and universities because they were taking legal opinion on the issue of OBC reservations from the state’s advocate-general because of a case pending in the Supreme Court.
Seuli Sarkar, the principal of Lady Brabourne College, wondered why the department did not seek legal opinion on the OBC quota much earlier, considering that it has been under legal scrutiny for some time.
While challenging a Calcutta High Court order of on May 21,2024, on scrapping OBC reservations in education and jobs, the state government told the Supreme Court in March this year that it had undertaken a fresh exercise to determine who would be the beneficiaries as part of the reservation.
Completing the exercise will take three months.
The apex court is scheduled to hear the case in July.
“Why did the department not start the process of seeking legal opinion much earlier? The results of all the boards have been published. The autonomous and private colleges and universities have started their admissions in early May. A delayed admission means we are missing out on the brighter students,” said Lady Brabourne principal Sarkar.
Sharmila Mitra, the principal of Behala College, which secured an A++ in the NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) rating in March 2023, said it was unfortunate that a state-aided college with the best grade was unable to start its admission process.
“Everybody knew about the reservation impasse. Did the education department not know when the results of the Plus-II boards are published? As an institution with an A++ grade, we look forward to attracting bright undergraduate students. But so long as the portal remains blocked, we are going to miss out on the best lot,” Mitra rued.
She said had the college been granted autonomy by Calcutta University, as advised by the NAAC, they would have started the admissions by now.
“The NAAC in its first recommendation said that the college be granted autonomy. Following this, we applied to Calcutta University for autonomy in 2023. But we have not received a response. If we had the autonomy, we could have started the admission process,” Mitra said.
An education department official said they were ready with the centralised portal.
“We are just waiting for the opinion of the advocate-general. Once it reaches us, we will open the portal by the end of May or early June,” the official said.
Last year, the undergraduate admission started one-and-a-half-month after the publication of the Plus-II board results in early May.