SHILLONG, May 25: Since the past two days there has been a queue of harried students and their parents/guardians waiting for admission forms since the wee hours of morning outside the College of Teachers’ Education (CTE), formerly known as the Post Graduate Training (PGT) College.
Exasperated parents and guardians of the students wonder why the College cannot conduct online admissions like all other colleges do.
The College has been giving out forms in instalments at a cost of Rs 1000 per form.
The Shillong Times spoke to the Principal of the College, Mary Anne Jyrwa, to seek her views on the matter.
Jyrwa clarified on Thursday that there are 50 seats in the College and there is no shortage of forms. The reason for not having online admissions is to give everyone a fair chance, especially the rural lot who do not have internet connectivity besides power shutdown.
The principal informed that 150 forms each were given out on Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday another 200 forms will be given out.
Clarifying the reason behind not putting the forms online, the Principal said, “If we do online admissions there will be an unfair advantage for urban students who have access to WiFi and good internet connectivity but students in rural areas with poor network and connectivity will be deprived of the chance to apply for admission.”
“We have people from across the state coming for admission. They come from Jirang, Nongstoin, Jowai etc to collect the forms. The students have themselves said they prefer to collect the admissions forms physically as they are unsure about filling the forms online apart from connectivity problems and we need to cater to students from both urban and rural areas,” the principal added.
Talking about the long queue for the form, she said, “The public needs to understand that we have not told them to queue throughout the night. We also do not want to deprive anyone of the forms but we have our limitations. With just 50 seats and hundreds of applicants we have to do our best by screening the applicants. The Government deputes 18 in-service teachers so in effect we have just 32 open seats. This year we don’t know how many seats will be required by the Government but it ranges between 18-20 seats.”
Asked as to why there are only 50 seats in the College, the Principal informed that from the time the semester system started it has always been 50 seats. Now since there are two semesters it means we have 100 seats. This is a two-year four-semester course.
With only two B.Ed colleges in Shillong and a growing number of students opting for a teaching job problems like this are bound to arise, quipped a parent.
