Government and aided colleges that are holding independent counselling to fill the seats that have remained vacant after the centralised counselling by the education department will hold either tutorials or additional classes so that students do not suffer due to a lack of preparedness.

The colleges have started holding independent counselling from October 10 and will continue the exercise till November 7.

Nearly 50% of the seats in most colleges did not have any takers.

At Lady Brabourne College, 15 out of the 35 seats in the English department remained empty after the centralised counselling through the state-run portal.

By Monday, all the seats had been filled through the online decentralised counselling.

Seats have been filled up in the microbiology department through the counselling held by the college.

“We have to hold tutorial classes for the students who have taken admission late. Or else they will not be able to cope up,” said Seuli Sarkar, the principal of the college.

“We are holding online classes amid the Puja vacation for those admitted through the centralised counselling because classes had started in late August this year. Now, additionally, we will hold tutorials for those admitted through the independent counselling,” she said.

Classes could be started on August 29 after the Supreme Court overturned a decision of a Calcutta High Court single bench, which stayed the implementation of the new OBC reservation rules notified by the state government on June 8.

Till the disposal of the writ petition filed by the state government before the apex court challenging the stay, classes could not commence.

Puja vacation started in colleges from September 24.

The principal of a government-aided college in South Calcutta said he has asked teachers to hold additional classes for students who will be admitted till November 7.

“We will hold additional classes for those taking admission through the decentralised counselling,” said Joydeep Sarangi, the principal of New Alipore College.

The principal of Lady Brabourne College said that if the students were not given additional care through the tutorial, they would struggle to adjust. Moreover, they will write the first semester examinations in January, she said.

“We have left it to teachers to work out the schedule for the tutorial classes. Students are bound to suffer because of the delayed admission. Through the tutorial classes, we wanted to compensate as much as possible,’ said Sarkar.

Asutosh College, in January this year, had appealed to Calcutta University to defer the first-semester internal examination.

The college authorities argued that students who got admitted late through the decentralised admission last year did not have enough time to prepare.

The college had written that if the internal examinations scheduled to start on January 15 could be deferred to late February.

But the university declined to push back the internal examinations as this would disturb the academic calendar.

“The colleges should have held additional classes to prepare the students who were enrolled late,” CU registrar Debasis Das had said then.

A principal of a government-aided college they are focusing on holding additional classes as much as possible so students can write the examinations with ease.

“Since the launch of the four-year undergraduate programme in 2023, the syllabus has become exhaustive. We have to prepare the students through the additional classes,” the principal said.