Class 11 admissions: 587 students apply for third counselling, 7% seats still vacant
As many as 587 students have applied for the third counselling for admission to Class 11 in city’s government schools against the 1,583 available seats.
With this, 996 seats are still vacant and are likely to remain unfilled as the 2023-24 academic session has already started in city schools. Before the first counselling, a total of 13,875 seats were up for grabs.
Of the total seats, 11,794 (85%) were reserved for students who completed Class 10 from a government school in Chandigarh, while 2,081 (15%) were available for general pool.
The city has 42 government senior secondary schools that offer Class 11 and 12.
In the third counselling, as per data released by the UT education department, of the 587 applications received, 49 are from government school students, while 538 are from students from private schools of the city and from other states.
Due to the 85% reservation rule, first priority will be given to government school students. However, with 1,583 seats available, all private school students will also get admission.
This is the first time in recent years that a large number of seats has remained unfilled after third counselling. Previously, extra seats had to be added for the third counselling to accommodate more students.
This happened after the education department announced that here will be no third counselling, prompting private school students to opt for private schools only for Class 11.
Eventually, the department decided to hold the third counselling in September, when term exams are going on in schools.
The number of private school kids who had applied in the second counselling and did not get admission was not readily available with the department.
Speaking about the unfilled seats, UT director school education Harsuhinderpal Singh Brar said, “We cannot do much about the number of applications received. With fewer students than previous years, we will bring down the teacher-pupil ratio, which had remained skewed in previous years.”
He added that further counselling rounds for the vacant seats remain unlikely.
As per the National Education Policy (NEP), the teacher-pupil ratio is set at 1:40, while it used to be closer to 1:60 in Chandigarh’s government schools earlier.
This is also the first time that all eligible government school students have gotten admission in Class 11, which was envisioned by the UT education department in their reservation policy announced this year. The matter regarding reservations is also sub-judice in Punjab and Haryana high court.
Interestingly, the science courses have found the least number of takers in the third counselling, despite having the highest cut-offs in the first counselling. Education department officials say they will look into why this has happened.
