Days after the Maharashtra government declared that admissions to First-Year Junior Colleges (FYJC) across Maharashtra will now be conducted through the centralised online system from the upcoming academic year, parents activists have written to Maharashtra’s Commissioner of Education opposing the newly proposed system.
Pune-based System Corrective Movement (SYSCOM), an organisation of parents’ activists which has long advocated for reforms in the FYJC admission system, on Monday submitted a letter to the Commissioner of Education Sachindra Pratap Singh highlighting various issues in the newly proposed system. According to their letter, multiple issues were already highlighted in the existing online system for FYJC admissions and yet the state government has decided to extend it to the entire state without making any improvements to it.
The letter states, “Concerns have been raised over transparency of the existing system, including compromise on merit in allotment of seats at various levels. It is said to be a centralised online system but allotment of seats is happening individually at colleges, there are multiple issues with various quota admissions leading to admission frauds. With all these issues unresolved, extending this system to FYJC admissions across Maharashtra is going to lead to more issues.”
Apart from noting concern over compromise on merit, SYSCOM in its letter also contended the new feature of ‘open-to-all’ admissions after the first four rounds. “There is no clarity on what this entails leading to confusion,” states the letter.
Starting from the academic year 2025-26, admissions to FYJC across Maharashtra will be conducted through the centralised online system. Until now, the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) for FYJC was limited to Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune-Pimpri Chinchwad, Nagpur, Nashik, and Amravati.
However, it will now be extended to junior colleges across the entire state, aiming to make the admission process more transparent and accessible. The announcement was made through a Government Resolution (GR) issued on Saturday.