Bengaluru, (DHNS): This year, an additional 25,000 students who passed the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations have enrolled for pre-university in the state.

According to data with the Department of Pre-University Education (DPUE), 25,864 more students have enrolled for first PU in the 2017-18 academic year, compared to the previous year.

A total of 6,38,306 students have taken admission this year in government, private, aided, bifurcated and corporation colleges. Last year, this number was at 6,12,442.

Government PU colleges have the highest share in the increase, with nearly 10,000 more students. Students admitted in first PU in government colleges has increased from 1,72,619 to 1,81,443.

The PU department expects these numbers to increase further as about 500 of 5,000 colleges have not submitted their admission reports, yet.

“This year we had an enrollment drive which is the main reason for the increase in admission to government colleges. We had an extensive advertisement campaign and we also tried to educate parents on why their children should not drop out after class X,” said C Shikha, Director, DPEU. They expect the numbers to go up by 5 to 10% once all the data is obtained from the remaining colleges.

After the announcement of the SSLC results, the principals of government colleges were urged to find students in their locality who had passed but not taken admission to PU colleges. Advertisement campaigns were also made to showcase the facilities available in government PU colleges and schemes offered by the government.

“Principals went from door-to-door with the list of students to convince parents to send their children. There were many parents who did not know about the benefits available from the government, especially for girl students,” one government PU college principal said.

Though the SSLC pass percentage this year was 67.87, the lowest since 2010, more students cleared the supplementary exams held in June. Compared to 26.07% in 2016, the pass percentage was 50.81 in these exams this year.

The last date for admission to PU colleges without fine was extended to accommodate the students. Some officials attributed this as a reason for the increase in enrollment.

Admissions data

Total

2016-17: 6,12,442

2017-18: 6,38,306

Government colleges

2016-17: 1,72,619

2017-18: 1,81,443

Private colleges

2016-17: 2,55,405

2017-18: 2,72,605