IKGPTU comes out with admission reforms to push numbers

Jalandhar, May 13

Going by the fact that only 40 per cent of the seats could be filled in technical education colleges of IK Gujral Punjab Technical University last year and that the overall seat status in Punjab has shifted from “deficit to surplus”, the university authorities have planned a series of reforms to improve the scenario in the coming admission session.

Post-pandemic, the trend of Punjabi youth heading abroad for education has again gained momentum. Taking this seriously, the IKGPTU has started a move to get a good number of admissions at an early stage.

Despite Class XII exams being under way, the university has started a parallel process of pre-registration. The officials said it’s an effort to check the trend towards the choice of courses, create close association with quality students and impart free career counselling to students.

Officials engaged in the admission cell have said the state government wants them to start performing like private sector education players.

The management may also do away with centralised counselling for which there were only 700 takers last year, down from 40,000 around 12 years ago.

Rahul Bhandari, Vice-Chancellor, IKGPTU, who also holds the charge of the Principal Secretary, Technical Education and Industrial Training, has sent communiques to the various states, including Jharkhand, West Bengal and Bihar and appealed to the states to send their pupils on student credit card schemes.

Bhandari also wrote to the Deputy Commissioners to promote the IKGPTU admissions through their district web and social media pages.

“The IKGPTU has over 200 affiliated colleges. We have a qualified staff, including scholars. The system just needs a push on the ground level. We will ensure 100 per cent admissions in technical education. Our target for the next year will be ‘waiting on demand’.”