Surge in applications for undergraduate courses, GNDU to increase seat capacity

With the opportunities to study abroad getting limited, there has been a surge in the number of those seeking to be enrolled in undergraduate courses in Punjab this year.

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Guru Nanak Dev University this year has witnessed a rise in the number of admission applications, say more than double the seats, for under-graduate courses. Dean (Academic Affairs) Dr Palwinder Singh, GNDU, said the university has 6,500 approved seats for all undergraduate courses. “But we have received 16,000 applications for admissions already. This is a huge response in terms of resources at the university,” he said.

Witnessing this surge, the university is now considering conducting centralised entrance exams and approving additional seats for courses that are in demand.

“For the past three-four years, there had been a decline in the number of undergraduate students due to mass student migration. We did away with the entrance exam for some of our courses and used to consider merit. But this year, centralised exams for all undergraduate courses in life sciences, social sciences and computer-based courses will be done,” he informed.

Since the university decides on its seats requirement per courses given its autonomy over the matter, this year social sciences, architecture and computer and IT courses might also see an increase in the number of seats. “If a course has 60 approved seats and the number of students is exceedingly high for admissions, we might consider raising the number of seats to 120 for it,” he said.

The university has already announced an additional 53 new courses from this academic session onwards due to the surge in admissions.

Additionally, colleges in cities like Amritsar, Tarn Taran and surrounding rural areas are reporting an unprecedented demand for undergraduate seats —breathing life into institutions that only months ago feared closure amid dwindling enrolments. GNDU also considers reinforcing faculty and other infrastructure in its constituent colleges in Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Tarn Taran.