Bhubaneswar: The admission process to various higher secondary schools, earlier known as Plus Two colleges, are over with a large number of seats still vacant.

Of the 4,24,739 seats in three streams in arts, science and commerce in 1,596 higher secondary schools, 85,732 seats remained vacant after the spot admissions this year.

While the number of higher secondary schools in Khurda district was 132, it rose to 153 this session, the highest in the state. There has been no admission to 9,027 seats of the 36,502 in all the three streams.

In Ganjam district, which has 136 higher secondary schools, there was no admission to the 12,842 seats in the three streams.

Cuttack district showed a similar trend. With 130 Plus Two colleges, 4,054 of 11,872 science seats remain vacant while at least 1,888 seats of the 4,016 in other streams are lying vacant.

According to reports, a majority of these vacancies have been noticed in private or self-financing higher secondary schools while in popular institutions, the vacancy figure is nominal.

Interestingly, six self-financing higher secondary schools in Bhubaneswar have reported zero enrolment this year in all the three streams and 75 self-financing schools have reported less than 50 per cent enrolment. Students apparently applied for multiple institutes, private technical colleges and other professional courses simultaneously.

"The trend to go for alternative courses has become very popular over the past two years and this is the reason for the huge vacancies. It is important for the state government to come up with innovative ways of imparting education and courses to attract students," said Ashish Padhi, an educator.

The state has 466 self-financing higher secondary schools. Of these, 83 higher secondary schools operate in and around Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.