Availability of seats in undergraduate courses in the University of Calicut, the biggest institution in the higher education sector in the Malabar region, has become a talking point as the admission process in its affiliated colleges is all set to begin soon.
The admission monitoring committee of the university is meeting on Monday. Notification for admissions is expected to be issued in the coming days.
It was academics and activists aligned to the United Democratic Front (UDF) who flagged a perceived shortage in the seats soon after the Plus Two results were out. They cited a circular brought out by C. Thabeetha George, Joint Registrar, on June 21 on the marginal increase of seats for 2022-23. The circular said that the maximum number of seats available for B.A. and B.Com. courses would be 60. For B.Sc. and BCA., it is 48; BBA, BSW, BTTM, BVC, B.A. (Multimedia) 50, and BTHM, BHA and BHM it is 40. It was pointed out that the Higher Education department had allowed a maximum of 70 seats for B.A. and B.Com seats in 2020 in the wake of the pandemic and that the number would come down by 10 this year. The UDF-aligned activists claimed that though the university Syndicate recently allowed proportional increase of seats up to 20%, the number of seats in undergraduate courses might get reduced from last year’s 1.1 lakh.
