A dip in demand is visible for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes offered by affiliated colleges of Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) under the self-financing mode.
An analysis of the official admission data for the academic year 2021-22 showed that more than 50% of the total seats remained vacant after the completion of the admission process.
Of the total 37,455 seats available for undergraduate programmes in the self-financing mode, 19,534 seats had no takers, while the number of admissions was 17,921. The intake was even worse for the self-financing postgraduate programmes. More than 60% of the seats remained vacant in this category. Only 2,724 students had opted for the self-financing postgraduate programmes. The number of seats that remained vacant was 4,220.
The university authorities pointed out that the marginal increase in the number of seats for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in 2021-22 had a reflection on the considerable rise in the number of vacant seats. The government had asked universities to increase the number of seats, anticipating a spike in the number of aspirants on estimates that the number of students opting for higher education courses outside the State and abroad would be less in view of the pandemic situation. However, the figures showed that the demand was not matching the expectations shown by the authorities.
The self-financing programmes that lacked demand included B. Voc courses in various subjects. An assessment by the Kerala State Higher Education Council on the vocational courses offered by the State universities had found that there was a tendency among colleges to run such courses on the self-financing mode after the initial enthusiasm created by funding from the University Grants Commission. The falling examination results indicated that the teaching-learning process of B. Voc courses was not up to the mark, and curricular objectives were not optimised, it said.
