Bathinda, August 27
Commerce graduates who had appeared in the B.Ed entrance test conducted by Punjabi University, Patiala, this year, have been affected by a “mistake” of the university authorities. Some of the students have been allotted “wrong” subject combinations, violating the instructions of the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE). The mistake was later realised by the university.

Punjabi University had conducted the B.Ed entrance test on July 1 and declared the results on July 15. The university discontinued the earlier practice of giving details of the number of seats available in various subject combinations. It gave only the number of seats available in various colleges of state as the entrance test for admission to B.Ed in the colleges situated in Chandigarh was held separately by Panjab University.

Some affected students while talking to this correspondent today said that they had appeared for counselling on August 3 and the university gave admissions to them at Desh Bhagat Pandit Chetan Dev Government College of Education, Faridkot, with subject combinations, including economics-Punjabi and economics-English even though they were not eligible for these subject combinations. Interestingly the government college of education at Faridkot has no teaching of commerce.

The students were asked to report to the college on August 13. When they reported to the college on the specified date, they were refused admissions by the college, saying that they had received instructions from the university that the students had been admitted in the wrong subject combinations, thereby their admission stood cancelled. The students were asked to go to the Registrar-cum-Coordinator of Punjabi University.

Mr A.K. Kapoor, Principal of the Faridkot College was not available for comments. A professor of the college said that when the university authorities realised their mistake, the admissions of the students were cancelled and the fee deposited by them was refunded. As there were no seats of these subject combinations, the college authorities were helpless, she added.