Maharashtra’s directorate of technical education (DTE) has decided to give class XII students from the science stream, who did not opt for mathematics at the 10+2 level, direct admission to engineering and technology courses in polytechnic institutes in the state. The move is expected to benefit a large number of HSC students who earlier had to give up their plans of pursuing diploma courses only because they had not taken maths at the junior college level.
The sale of the application kit for the direct second-year admissions for around 390 diploma courses in the state begins today.
Maharashtra has around 390 polytechnic institutes with an intake capacity of nearly 1.8 lakh students. Twenty per cent of these seats, which makes for nearly 36,000 seats, are open for direct second-year admissions. The DTE has kept a 25% quota for lateral entry from each of the four designated categories – HSC (science), HSC (bifocal), HSC (MCVC) and ITI.
Several SSC pass-outs have been making a beeline for polytechnic courses in Mumbai colleges to avoid the intensely competitive national-level entrance exams such as JEE (Main). The ever-increasing popularity of these courses saw cut-offs in sought-after colleges soar above 90 per cent last year. The three-year, post-SSC diploma courses allow a lateral entry into second-year engineering programmes—even in top-rung institutes.