Aided FYJC seats shrink, unaided ones increase over 5 years

Mumbai: Government-aided seats available for first-year junior college (FYJC) students in the city have decreased over the past five years, even as unaided seats, or those that do not get government grants, have increased during the period.
According to data from Mumbai’s deputy director of education’s office, the number of aided seats reduced from 1.25 lakh in 2012 to 1.18 lakh in 2016-17. On the other hand, unaided seats, which are much more expensive, increased from 1.41 lakh to 1.50 lakh.Government subsidizes fees of students studying in the aided section; those who study in the unaided section pay 10 to 15 times the fees that aided section students shell out.
The state has stopped giving approval for additional aided seats from 2005. Since then, demand for unaided seats has been on the rise. “We constantly keep getting requests for new colleges to start operations on an unaided basis or existing colleges ask for addition of unaided divisions to meet the demand. On the other hand, at colleges where there is no demand, aided seats don’t get sanctioned the following year,” said B B Chavan, deputy director of education, Mumbai.
The higher the number of unaided seats, more the number of students who have to shell out higher fees for junior college. At most colleges, fees for the aided section are around Rs 1,000 while for the unaided section, these could go up to Rs 10,000 or even more.
At K C College, Churchgate, for instance, the fee for the unaided section of the Commerce stream was Rs 10,745 last year. However, colleges say they do not differentiate among students. “Everything is just the same for both sections. The only difference is that we can change the faculty in the unaided section in case they do not meet our standards,” said Manju Nichani, principal, K C College. Principals say while there is little difference between studying at unaided and aided sections during junior college years, this changes at the undergraduate level. “The class strength is much less in the unaided sections, which allows colleges to experiment with the teaching methodology. This benefits students,” said Dinesh Panjwani, principal, National College, Bandra. There are more unaided seats than aided at the college.