No takers for KU's engineering programmes as seats remain vacant

Varsity floats call for 'spot admissions'

The Kashmir University (KU) authorities have floated a call for 'open admissions' to fill up vacant seats for various engineering programmes, reflecting poorly on the varsity's efforts to boost its declining admissions.

Directorate of Admissions and Competitive Examinations at KU on Wednesday floated a notification for counselling/spot admissions for vacant seats in Open/Reserved and Self-Finance categories in the Institute of Technology, Zakura Campus and North Campus Baramulla.

As per the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the vacant seats are almost 70 to 80 percent in branches, including Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics and Communication Engineering at the IOT, besides Computer Science Engineering at North Campus Baramulla, according to officials.

"It is notified for information of all concerned candidates that afresh counselling session has been scheduled on 30.10.2023 for 4-year BTech Programmes which have remained vacant due to non-completion of admission formalities/cancellation of admissions by the selected candidates," the KU notification dated 25.10.2023 reads.

It adds: "Further, the candidates who have appeared in JEE-2023 but have not applied for admissions due to one or other reason when the University had invited applications for admissions, are also eligible for admissions against the vacant seats and shall also attend counselling session for on-spot admission on the basis of valid JEE scores."

The spot admission call by the University reflects poorly on its efforts to plug the declining student strength in PG and engineering programmes. This is for the first time in the University's history that admission strength has considerably fallen, from nearly 30,000 applications previously to merely 11000 this year.

"Such decisions (to call for spot admissions) normally need anticipatory approval of the Vice-Chancellor who has to place it before the Academic Council for ratification. While this might have been done, the fact is University has itself admitted cancellation of admissions and calls for spot admissions which requires serious introspection," said a KU academician, wishing anonymity.

He said the University must hold an academic audit of programmes to assess their viability, besides assess other reasons for decline in student strength.

"Decline in admissions will badly hit the perception about the University. If students are unwilling to join its programmes, it is incumbent upon the University's Chancellor to institute a high level inquiry to assess the reasons," he said