To fill vacant seats and get a bigger pool of students to select from, Architecture schools in the state want to consider candidates appearing for Joint Entrance Examination apart from National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA). The Association of Schools of Architecture Gujarat has written a letter to the state government, requesting them to allow architecture schools to consider JEE candidates. This will also help in filling vacant seats.

Confirming the same, Utpal Sharma, Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Planning said, "We get architecture students only through NATA, but many architects also appear for JEE paper too. This is the reason we have written to the state government requesting them to allow us to consider JEE students. Also, in architecture courses, many seats have been going vacant. This will help in filling those vacant seats as well as we will get to choose from the number of applications for better quality students."

It is to be noted that only top institutes have been able to fill in seats but of them, not all have been able to fill all the seats. Last year, nearly 40% seats in Bachelors of Architecture programme remained vacant even after round 2 of admissions. As per the data of the Admissions Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC), of a total of 1367 seats, 817 were confirmed by the students whereas 550 remained vacant.

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On the other hand, with a sudden change of rule by the Council of Architecture, nearly 400 students pursuing a diploma in architecture have been left in the lurch. As per the recent notification of NATA, declaring the examination dates and eligibility criteria, only class 12 students with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics can appear for the exam to seek admission in a degree college of architecture. With the new rule, close to 5000 diploma students in Gujarat and many more across the country have been affected. Experts say that diploma students should be allowed to appear for NATA as even that will help fill vacant seats.