Tribal organisations demand more Plus One seats for Wayanad

With several students likely to miss out on admission, tribal organisations have demanded additional Plus One seats for the Wayanad district and the sanctioning of additional batches to accommodate students from Scheduled Tribe communities.

In a statement issued, Adi Shakti Summer School and Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha (AGMS) said the “neglect shown” towards Wayanad district in the allocation of additional Plus One seats was “highly condemnable”.

Although the government has proposed additional seats and batches for four districts in north Kerala to address the shortage of Higher Secondary seats, Wayanad has been left out. In fact, Wayanad is the district that needed additional seats the most, the organisations said.

According to them, more than 12,000 students have applied for Plus One admission in Wayanad. However, after the third allotment, only around 9,000 students had secured seats, leaving a large number of students without admission.

“This will disproportionately affect students from the most marginalised Scheduled Tribe communities. After the first three allotments, only around 1,000 Scheduled Tribe students had secured admission. More than 1,000 students from the Scheduled Tribe category alone are likely to be left out,” said C. Manikandan, acting president of Adi Shakti Summer School.

M. Geethanandan, State coordinator of AGMS, said it was only after tribal students staged protests that the practice of admitting Scheduled Tribe students to private parallel colleges under the guise of ‘spot allotment’ was discontinued.

“However, in the final phase of allotment, Scheduled Tribe students continue to be allotted seats in distant institutions and in courses they are not interested in. Many of those admitted in this manner eventually drop out. To prevent this, additional batches should be sanctioned in schools where a large number of Scheduled Tribe students seek admission so that more students from these communities can be accommodated. These may even be temporary batches,” Mr. Geethanandan added.