Govt. increases Plus One seats

20% more seats from Palakkad to Kasaragod and 10% from Thiruvananthapuram to Thrissur

The government has decided to increase the Plus One higher secondary seats in district from Palakkad to Kasaragod by 20% and those from Thiruvananthapuram to Thrissur by 10%.

Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty on Wednesday said that as many as 4,19,651 students had passed the SSLC examinations this year. However, the number of existing Plus One higher secondary seats in the State was 3,61,307.

There were 33,000 seats in the VHSE sector and 49,140 seats in ITIs, 19,080 in polytechnics. In all, the number of seats came to 4,62,527. In the government and aided sector alone, there were 3,06,150 seats.

With an increase in seats, the total number of Plus One seats in the State this year would come to 4,00,899. Care would be taken to ensure that like last year, some subjects were not left with vacant seats. If some issues still remained, these would be addressed.

General Education Principal Secretary APM Mohammed Hanish said if any seat shortage arose despite the additional seats sanctioned, the government would intervene.

Director of General Education (DGE) Jeevan Babu K. said Plus One admissions would begin in the first week of August.

On the issue of reservation in Plus One seats, the DGE said discussions were on for getting a legal opinion, and a solution would be found soon.

Mr. Hanish said that online education would get under way with the vocational higher secondary classes in the first week of August. The arrangements for this were under way in 34 VHSE schools.

The Minister said data on the number of students who did not have digital equipment would be published soon.

Flays trolls

Referring to trolls on the high pass percentage in the SSLC examinations, Mr. Sivankutty said students in the State had studied, appeared for the examinations, and secured good results. However, they were being trolled. This would cause students mental stress and destroy their confidence.

A number of students had called him and other Education Department officials asking why they were being trolled when they had studied hard to secure good grades.

Not everyone agreed with these trolls. Only those who were behind them might enjoy them. Cracking jokes was fine, but insulting children was out of bounds, Mr. Sivankutty said.

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