Mumbai: As the results of class 10 and 12 exams of the state board as well as the two national boards have been declared, junior colleges, polytechnics, vocational schools and degree colleges in the city will soon start admitting the fresh batch of students.
While the admissions to the first year junior college and the degree colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai (MU) is already underway, the centralised admission process (CAP) for diploma engineering programmes at polytechnics and craftsman training scheme at Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) will kickstart from today (May 29) and Saturday (June 1), respectively.
The centralised admissions to 1,022 junior colleges in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) began on Friday. So far, around 1.07 lakh candidates have already signed up on the admission portal 'mumbai.11thadmission.org.in'.
The filling of option form, the second step of CAP, is yet to begin. In the 2023-24 cycle, just 2.68 lakh (69%) out of 3.9 lakh class 11 seats were filled in the MMR. While 306 junior colleges that participated in the CAP had all their seats taken, 242 others didn't get a single candidate. As many as 443 institutes couldn't fill even half of their seats, with 320 registering fewer than 20% admissions.
The engineering aspirants can participate in the online admissions for polytechnic by logging in the directorate of technical education website dte.maharashtra.gov.in. There are around 1.05 lakh seats available at 390 institutes across the state.
In the past few years, demand for diploma engineering has surged in Maharashtra. The enrollment to polytechnics has increased from 62,122 in 2020-21 to 86,465 in 2023-24. The number of institutes also rose from 376 to 388 in this period, while their occupancy jumped from 60% to 87%.
Those looking for skill-based education can apply for vocational courses at 992 government-run and private ITIs in the state, offering 1,48,568 seats, including 20,136 in Mumbai region. The MU has also started the admission process for undergraduate programmes at its 900-odd affiliated colleges last week.
While the students have to individually apply at the colleges of their choice, they are required to do a pre-admission registration on the varsity portal 'muugadmission.samarth.edu.in'. As all the varsity colleges will start implementing the national education policy from this year, the students will be able to apply for both the existing three-year UG courses as well as the newly introduced four-year honours programmes.
The admission to the Bachelor of Management Studies will be done through a state-level entrance test as the course has now been categorised as a professional programme and brought under the regulatory control of the All Indian Council for Technical Education. However, the colleges that opted to change the name of the course to BCom (management studies) will be able to admit students directly.
