Odisha HRD

125 Plus 2 Science colleges in and around Bhubaneswar? The good and the bad of it.

Following is from a report in Times of India.

… In the last few years, nearly 125 private Plus-II science colleges have mushroomed in and around the city. Lured by their promise of helping students to crack the IIT entrance and other tough competitive exams, parents are ready to cough up whatever admission amount and fees they ask for.

… These completely residential colleges offer reasonably good infrastructure and a host of extra facilities like coaching for competitive exams, 24×7 teachers` guidance, Wi-Fi campus, air-conditioned classrooms, comfortable hostels and transportation services. The facilities, obviously, come at a price — these institutes charge at least 10 times more than government-run colleges.

"The reason for proliferation of self-financing colleges in the city is the lack of infrastructure, good teaching and extra facilities in government colleges. Students of state colleges have to depend on tuitions after college hours to complete their course; as a result, they don`t get much time for self-study. But in private residential colleges, they get enough time to study on their own," said Biranchi Panda, the president of Jupiter +2 Science College.

The principal of BJB Junior College, S N Mohanty, said, "New educational institutes are always welcome if their genuine purpose is to impart education. But most of these colleges are shops out to rake in profits. They are commercial establishments rather than educational institutes. Besides, there should be a law to regulate the fee structure and the profits of these colleges."

The fee for the two-year Plus-II course in self-financing, residential colleges ranges between Rs 75,000 a year to Rs 1.40 lakh a year, depending on the infrastructure and facilities. "It`s burning a hole in my pocket to pay the fees of my two daughters studying in two different residential colleges in the city. Before admission, these institutes make many promises but once the students join they realize they lack many things," said Prafulla Rout of Barbil.

Padmaja Naidu, the director of Naidu +2 Science College, said, "If you take the fee of a government college along with entrance exam coaching fees, it will be equal with the expense of studying in a private college. Parents want air-conditioned classrooms and refrigerators in hostels. And these facilities do not come for free."

However, many feel it is high time to run checks on self-financing colleges in the city. Many of these institutes are operating out of rented houses without quality teachers, laboratories, libraries and other infrastructure. Following allegations of manipulation of results at a well-known self-financing college, the government ordered a crime branch probe.

"The mushrooming of self-financing colleges is mainly due to the faulty policy of the state government. There must be checks in place at some point. The government is giving approval to colleges without properly verifying infrastructure and faculty positions. Due to this, many government colleges are suffering," said the principal of Newton +2 Science College, K C Mohanty.

R N Panda, the principal of Institute of Higher Secondary Education, said, "There are many genuine private colleges that are run by academicians although some of them are luring students with false promises. Private colleges have accountability and a healthy competition, which government institutes lack."

2 comments May 23rd, 2011

40,000 from Odisha appear in IIT JEE in 2011??

Following is an excerpt from a report on Times of India regarding increase in the number of students appearing in IIT JEE from Odisha.

The number of IIT aspirants in Orissa saw a steady rise with nearly 40,000 students appearing for the joint entrance examination ( JEE) for the country’s premier institute on Sunday, officials said.

Registrar of IIT-Bhubaneswar Bata Kishore Ray said, "The number of aspirants from Orissa has gone up in the last couple of years, especially after IIT-B started operating from the city. …

… About 30,000 aspirants appeared from the state last year, he added.

… In the capital city alone, over 5,000 students appeared in 12 centres for one of the toughest competitive examinations in the country.

… Director of a city-based coaching centre Jyoti Ranjan Tripathy said good coaching facilities and number of successful students increasing every year has been motivating others to go for IIT. "In terms of coaching facilities, Bhubaneswar can be called the Kota of eastern India. Orissa has created some top rankers in IIT-JEE in the last few years and this has motivated more students."

As per a report in Economic Times, the total number of applicants for IIT JEE is 4,85,262.

Following is obtained from a Deccan Chronicle report, a TOI report and another TOI report:

• Total: 4,85,262 out of which 1,13,942 were girl applicants.
  • SC – 47,479; ST – 19,305; OBC – 1,42,387 (TOI)
• Madras zone (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala): about 68,500 out of which 20,546 were girls. (last year 65,650)
• Mumbai zone: about 85,260/68,735*
  
• Kanpur zone: around 80,400/63,661* (16,770 girls)
• Guwahati zone (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya and West Bengal): about 58,700.
• Kharagpur zone:??
• Delhi Zone: 71,353 (16,877 girls)
  
• Roorkee Zone: 16,976 girls

* Two newspapers give different numbers. 

Assuming the numbers for Odisha are correct, it is a significant development in that 8.25% of the total applicants will be from Odisha. Note that Odisha’s population is 3.47% of the total population of the country. 

Ofcourse, a more important aspect is the success in the exam, but significant increase in the applications is a good starting point. Some of the reason behind this increase are:

• More awareness due to IIT Bhubaneswar.
• The significant increase in the availability of coaching, including many nationally known coaching institutes opening their centers in Odisha, especially in Bhubaneswar. These include Careerpoint, FIITJEE, Narayana, Resonance and Vidya Mandir.
• The significant increase in the number of private +2 colleges across the state, some of which have ties with coaching classes.

Now lets hope a good number from Odisha succeed in IIT JEE. Currently Hyderabad and Kota are the places with the highest number of successful candidates. Following is an excerpt from a TOI report on that.

If JEE-2010 results are pored over, the maximum number of candidates to clear the exam was from Andhra Pradesh (AP).

The state dominated the merit list. Seven of the top ten rankers were from there, the share of Kota (which is in Rajasthan) starting only after rank 15. While in 2006, 938 candidates from AP and 1,004 from Rajasthan made it to the IITs, a year later the tables had turned, with 1,384 from AP clearing JEE and 1,344 from Rajasthan. It has been a close race since. In 2009, for example, 1,862 students from AP and 1,898 from Rajasthan cleared JEE.

There are reports from other cities and states, but many have contradictory reports. Following are data from some of these reports.

• Karnataka: 5,400 (Expressbuzz)
• Bangalore: 4,125 (Expressbuzz)
• Nagpur: 4,800 (TOI)
• Mumbai: 8,500 (DNA)
• Maharashtra: 21,000 (DNA), 21,700 (DNA)
• Lucknow: 15,000 (TOI)
• Varanasi: 8,000 (TOI)
• UP: 83,139 (TOI)
• Jaipur: 38,000 (TOI)
• Delhi: 37,411 (TOI
• Andhra Pradesh: 50,000 (Deccan Chronicle), Over 1 lakh (TOI).
• Chennai: 5,000 (Expressbuzz), 5,329 (TOI)
• Bhubaneswar: 5,000 (Times of India)
• Odisha: 40,000 (Times of India)  [I doubt this number.]

3 comments April 11th, 2011

Junior College preferences to study Plus 2 Science among students of Odisha

This is based on the cut-off data in https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/5020 and is only about the 169 junior colleges for which there is e-counseling. Note that there are now more than 100 private plus 2 science colleges across Odisha (with more than 50 in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack area alone) and they are not part of this list. An example is the Kalinga Bharati College that did very well in Plus 2 exams this year. In 2007 we had made a list of the new breed of private +2 science colleges at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/283. By now the number of such colleges has more than doubled.

The above data is consistent with anecodotal stories that I heard regarding most students from areas like Bhawanipatna going off to other places (including Raipur and Visakhapatnam) to pursue their +2 science and get coaching.

2 comments July 21st, 2010

First phase cutoff marks for 169 junior colleges across Odisha

Following is from http://dheorissa.in/sams/JuniorCutoffMarks.aspx.

July 20th, 2010

Kalinga Bharati Residential College shines in the +2 performance: top three in science and topper in commerce are from this college

The website of this college is http://www.kalingabharati.org/. This year students from this college have done extremely well in +2 results. Only BJB College’s performance is close to them. While earlier it used to be a contest between BJB and Ravenshaw, this year Ravenshaw has bitten dust and its place has been taken by this college.

In particular its performance in +2 is as follows:

• In +2 Science, 16 of the top 20 ranks are from this college, including the topper and 3 from the top 2 ranks.
• In +2 Commerce, the topper is from this college.

Upon further browsing their web pages I am of the opinion that this college will be a trendsetter and pioneer in Odisha. Just look at their faculty listed at http://www.kalingabharati.org/FACULTY_LIST.HTM.

Based on this faculty I am going to go out on a limb and predict that this year there will be at least 10 students from this college in the IIT JEE top 1000.

I hope some of the other private +2 colleges will immediately copy from this college and assemble a similar faculty and beat Kota at its own game and send more Orissans to IIT and other top institutions.

As per Dharitri the +2 Science topper from Kalinga Bharati, Kiity Jain (a girl) is from Khariar in Nuapada district and the +2 Commerce topper Bhabani Acharya (also a girl) is from Semiliguda in Koraput.

23 comments May 19th, 2010

Top 20 in Plus 2 arts in 2010

Following is from http://orissaresults.nic.in/artst20.html.

The list has 27 students. The top colleges/schools from where these students come from are:

• Ravenshaw Jr College Cuttack (Ranks 1, 3, 5, 16)
• BJB Junior College Bhubaneswar (Ranks 2, 8, 14, 17 )
• Women’s College Baragarh (Rank 3)
• Rajendra College Balangir (Rank 4)
• Babaji Sahu College Gajabandha, Sonepur (Rank 6)
• Govt. Junior College Phulbani (Rank 7)
• Nigamananda Mahila Mahavidyalaya Charichhak Puri (Rank 8 )
• Anchalika Mahavidyalaya Hatadihi Keonjhar (Rank 9)
• SSDA College Sankhamari Cuttack (Rank 9)
• Govt. Women’s junior College Balangir (Rank 10)
• NC Junior College Jajpur (Rank 11)
• RD Women’s Jr College Bhubaneswar (Rank 12, 20)
• LN Mahavidyalaya Jamsuli Balasore (Rank 13)
• Saheed Mahavidyalaya Barapur Bhadrak (Rank 15)
• SCS College Puri (Rank 15, 16)
• Anchalika Mahavidyalaya Baripada (Rank 18)
• Maharshi Bhubaneswar (Rank 19)
• FM Jr College Balasore (Rank 20)
• Angul Mahila Mahavidyalaya (Rank 20)

May 19th, 2010

Top 20 in Plus 2 Commerce in 2010

Following is from http://orissaresults.nic.in/comt20.html.

There are 29 students in the top 20 list. The top colleges from where these students come from are:

• KBR College Cuttack (the topper)
• Ravenshaw Junior College Cuttack (Ranks 2, 6, 15, 19, 19)
• Rairangpur College (Ranks 3, 17)
• VN College, Jajpur Rd (Rank 4)
• Belpahar College (Rank 5)
• Rourkela Municipal College (Ranks 7, 11, 18)
• Nimapara College (Rank 7)
• BJB College (Ranks 8, 14, 14, 14)
• UN College Adaspur Cuttack (Rank 9)
• FM Junior College (Ranks 10, 11, 14)
• MPC College Baripada (Rank 12)
• RD Women’s College Bhubaneswar (Rank 13)
• AC & A College Sunabeda (Rank 15, 20)
• Khallikote College (Rank 16)
• Govt. College Bhawanipatna (Rank 18)
• NC College Jajpur (Rank 20)

May 19th, 2010

Top twenty in plus 2 science in 2010

Following is from http://orissaresults.nic.in/scit20.html.

There are 53 students in the above list. The top junior colleges/schools from where these students come are:

• 16 are from KBR College Cuttack, including the topper and 3 from the top 2 ranks
• FM College Balasore (ranks 2, 17, 19, 19)
• 24 are from BJB College Bhubaneswar, but none from the top 2 ranks
• Irodov College Bhubaneswar  (rank 11)
• Royal College Bhubaneswar (ranks 13, 19)
• Ravenshaw Junior College Cuttack (ranks 15 )
• Saraswati Vidya Mandir Nilakanthanagar Berhampur (rank 15, 18)
• Vikash Junior College Baragarh (ranks 17, 19)
• Jupiter +2 Science College (rank 19)

The performance of KBR College (Pira Bazar, Jagatpur, Cuttack) is extremely impressive. (Before today, I had not heard of it.) the performance of the older colleges, especially Ravenshaw is disappointing. Except BJB, Ravenshaw and FM, none of the other older colleges (such as Khallikote College, SCS College, GM Junior College, Govt. College Rourkela, RD Women’s college, Sailabala Women’s college etc.) are in the above list.

My guess is that there is not much teaching going on in the traditional colleges and the performance in BJB is perhaps only due to the top students going in there.

14 comments May 19th, 2010

A single place to apply to 53 degree colleges in Odisha; extended from a similar initiative with respect to junior colleges (+2) that was done last year

The review of the processes of admission in Orissa, has led the Higher Education department, formulate a strategy for the admission process…

3 comments May 15th, 2010

Prof. Damodar Acharya Committee reportedly proposes to scrap IIT JEE and other entrance exams

Update: Following are excerpts from a follow-up Telegraph report which mentions about the committee’s recommendation to have wide-spread consultations before making the changes.

But it has advised caution in implementing the reforms. The panel has suggested detailed consultations and workshops with the state governments, other top engineering institutions like the National Institutes of Technology, and private universities.

The recommendations of the panel can be fine-tuned based on the outcome of the consultations, the team led by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya has suggested. The panel is likely to meet soon and may draw up a schedule for the consultations at that meeting.

… At a meeting of the panel in Chennai on March 16 with representatives of state and central school boards, some participants suggested that rural students be given more opportunities than urban students. The participants proposed two attempts for urban students and three for rural students.

The panel and the HRD ministry will also need to convince state governments that the move to end state-specific engineering tests is not against their interests.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

… The panel, appointed by human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).

The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, ..

Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.

Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on physics, chemistry and math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.

If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will for the first time admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.

…The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.

…  The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.

The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.

The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.

The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards.

There is a big danger that the above approach will make the XIIth exams a high stakes affair and bring it under the microscope with every aspect of it being scrutinized and judged by everyone. Most coaching classes may reinvent themselves and start coaching how to score more marks in the XIIth exam and the proposed SAT type exam. This approach may bring in bias favoring students from families with educated parents. English being a compulsory subject in XIIth, this may put students in rural areas and other areas where English is less used at a disadvantage.

So one has to wait and see how this will pan out.

My guess is if the above idea is adopted, it will go through some changes such as specific types of colleges may be allowed to give different weight to Class XII marks in different subjects. Some may introduce interviews or other tests.

One change that should be made is that when possible specialty branches should not be assigned to most  students (say 70-80% in any college/institute) immediately after they join a college/institute after the XIIth. That should be determined after a year in that college/institute based on the performance in that year. This will make the class XII exam less cutthroat and ensure that students after they get into a college/institute continue to give importance to academics.

One alternative idea may to test the proposed idea (of using class XIIth marks) on 50% of the seats for a few years before deciding whether to completely abandon the current approach or not.

7 comments April 14th, 2010

Government colleges in Malkangiri and Nuapada and govt +2 science colleges in Kutra, Tiring and Jirang

Following is from the page http://www.dheorissa.in/DHE/Initiatives.aspx?lnk=ini.

To popularise Science education in backward areas Government has decided to open Colleges in the the districts of Malkangiri and Nuapada. Three more Government +2 Science Colleges at Kutra (Sundargarh), Tiring (Mayurbhanj) and Jirang ( Gajapati) are going to be esablished.

1 comment November 12th, 2009

Orissa Education and HRD related headlines from our sister site in Twitter

Our sister site in Twitter is http://twitter.com/orissalinks. (Often when we are busy or do not feel like writing a full posting here, we post a micro-blog in our Twitter sister site. The Twitter sister site also automatically adds the headline from this site and the orissagrowth site. Once in a  while we will collect those headlines here. But readers wanting a broader and more immediate coverage should consider following our Twitter site at http://twitter.com/orissalinks.) Following are some selected items from that site since July 12th.

• Orissa govt. adopts AICTE-introduced Tuition Waiver Scheme for women, poor & PH students in professional institutions. http://bit.ly/BVJPs.
• Century plus old Khallikote College in Berhampur Orissa is the first one in Orissa to get star status from UGC. http://bit.ly/11h750.
• Tathya: Xavier Inst. of Management in Bhubaneswar, Orissa plans to become a university. http://bit.ly/15OLcd.
• IHM, Ranjita IHM in #Bhubaneswar & the Food Craft Institute in Bolangir are top hotel management institutes in #Orissa. http://bit.ly/Z5Dtz.
• Members cutting across party lines from Balasore district in Orissa demand (in Assembly) medical college at Balasore. http://bit.ly/3YpLV6.
• Orissa plans to open plus two colleges in all the 118 integrated tribal development agency (ITDA) blocks in the State. http://bit.ly/vlKTX.
• Business standard interviews IIT Bhubaneswar director. http://bit.ly/2mjlQ.
• Central Univ Orissa Koraput advertises faculty positions. http://bit.ly/rcQcq.
• Central University of Orissa Koraput web page is http://cuorissa.org.
• Tata Steel Teams up with KISS. http://bit.ly/CN5jj http://www.tathya.in/2009/s….
• Nuapada, Deogarh, Subarnapur, Nayagarh, Kendrapara and Jajpur do not have Kendriya Vidyalayas. May get one each. http://bit.ly/GkkJZ.
• Pioneer: Efforts being made for a Sainik School in Western Orissa http://bit.ly/2D9bb9.
• Academic session of the Institute of Interior and Fashion Technology (IIFT), Bhubaneswar from August this year. http://bit.ly/1hOC2J Bus. St.
• XIM Bhubaneswar names its new acad. block as Tata Centenary Learning Centre; Tata Steel contributed about 1 crore to it. http://bit.ly/bwvES.

August 20th, 2009

Orissa CHSE (+2) toppers in 2009

May 28th, 2009

Joint application for +2 government junior colleges and a few private colleges (ones in DHQs without government junior colleges)

The Department of Higher Education (DHE) of Orissa has a nice new website. This year they are having a joint application for all the +2 government junior colleges and a few private colleges. Following are some links:

• Common Prospectus (pdf). (html)
• Common Application form(pdf).
• Toll Free Number for questions related to the process (it is called e-admission, but I am not sure why): 1 800 345 6770
• Know more about SAMS
• Know more about e-Admission
• Click here for the list of Colleges under SAMS
• Key dates:
  • 11-May-09 Downloading CAF & CP from the Website
  • 16-Jun-09 Sale of CAF & CP from college counter
  • 30-Jun-09 Last date of submission of CAF in any of 60 Junior Colleges
  • 12-Jul-09 Publication of FIRST selection list
  • 18 & 19 Jul 09 Preliminary Admission of FIRST selection for applicants whose Destination College is different than Applied College
  • 20 to 25 Jul-09 Final Admission in Applied-cum-Destination Colleges of First Select List
  • 28-Jul-09 Publication of SECOND selection list
  • 03-Aug-09 Preliminary Admission of SECOND selection for applicants whose Destination College is other than Applied College
  • 4 & 5 Aug 09 Final admission in Applied-cum-Destination Colleges of 2nd Select List
  • 6 to 8 Aug 09 Exchange of Documents for outstation college applicants who have taken preliminary admission.
  • 10 & 11 Aug 0 Final admission of outstation student in destination colleges
  • 12-Aug-09 Classes start for 1st year student (in all 60 Junior Colleges)

The DHE web page has a lot of information including a very nice interactive map of where the government and private colleges are located. Following is a snapshot from that map. The red dots are private aided colleges and the blue dots are government colleges. I have clustered the government colleges to suggest that the government colleges in each cluster can be put together to create a local university.

May 13th, 2009

12 KVPY from Orissa

Following is from a report in the Statesman.

Twelve students of the state including five from DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, Bhubaneswar have been selected for the Kishore Vaigyanik Protshana Yojana (KVPY) scholarship. A total of 198 students from across the country have qualified this year.

The students who qualified for the scholarship from DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur, are ~ Mr Pinaki Prasun Kumar, Mr Biplab Rana, Mr P Dinesh, Mr Rohit Gupta and Mr Smarak Mohanty.

Students of BJB College of Bhubaneswar who qualified for the scholarship are Mr Animesh Swain, Mr Aish Mohapatra and mr Saswat Panigrahi.

Mr Himalaya Senapati of Bhadrak College, Ms Pallabi Mishra from Cuttack Siddharth Senapati and Mr Ajaya Kumar Jena of Balasore have successfully qualified for the scholarship.

The scholarship programme, which is initiated by the Department of Science and Technology, government of India, aims to identify and select students who demonstrate talent and aptitude and encourage and assist them in pursuing research careers. It does so by the means of a two-tire examination.

The successful students will be provided with generous fellowship up to pre-PhD level. In addition, summer programmes in prestigious research and educational institutions in the country will also be organised for them.

1 comment February 20th, 2009

Top 20 ranked students in Plus two arts in 2008

June 14th, 2008