Technical difficulties with Karnataka’s one-stop UG admission portal surface

This seems to be reflecting on the ground: a college official at a government degree college in the Kolar district told The Indian Express that he was “shocked to see that the admissions in the college have not crossed the 100 mark”. The college usually attracts over 400 students for the Bachelor of Commerce Degree but has only registered 40 applicants so far. The official attributes this to the “complexity of the UUCMS”.

Another college official from Kolar district, who wished to stay anonymous said, “Around 700 to 800 students apply for admission every year in our college. This year, the number has not even crossed 100.”

While he cited the decrease in the pre-university course’s pass percentage (61.88 per cent) as the major reason for the low undergraduate admissions this year, he also said the UUCMS system was a factor. “We are now spending money to advertise in local newspapers and making efforts to bring students.”

Dr Tapan Naik, director of The ISBR Business School in Bengaluru, who wrote to the authorities at the state’s education department over the issue, flagged multiple technical issues with the portal. “The name of the student in the Aadhar card versus his name in the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) marks card are different and misplaced. This becomes difficult for the management side because they have to process the application through the portal when the names are not matching. The language combinations on the portal do not match with the course that is being offered in the college. Moreover, we are not able to check the SSLC marks uploaded by the students due to technical glitches.”

He added that the college has gotten only 124 undergraduate admissions so far as opposed to the regular 200.

Considering the issues, some colleges are trying to circumvent the UUCMs portal and are reverting back to manual admissions.

A professor from a Government Degree College in Udupi said, “We are sending some students to a cyber cafe to fill the forms. Some are filling them manually by coming to college. Our admission has declined by 20 per cent compared to last year,” adding: “the portal is not user- friendly and it does not allow students to upload language medium certificates, rural certificates, etc which are critical to process their application. The payment mode, through debit card or UPI, is not a viable option for the poor children who are not exposed to digital payments yet. This is totally an unscientific model that is doubling the inconvenience to both the management and the students”.