Common Entrance Test slated for April 27 and 28

Bangalore - Minister for Higher Education V.S. Acharya on Wednesday announced that the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) had tentatively fixed April 27 and April 28 for conducting the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to professional courses in the coming academic year.

After a meeting with officials from the KEA, Dr. Acharya told presspersons that the counselling or the seat allocation process would be extended to five more centres this year taking the number of centres to 10. In 2010, the seat allocation process was held simultaneously in Bangalore, Hubli, Gulbarga, Mangalore and Shimoga. The venue for the centres and the numbers will be decided depending on the number of students appearing for the CET. The CET will be held for medical, dental, engineering and Indian systems of medicine courses.

Expansion

The department is contemplating an expansion of the academic information set-up in the KEA such as infrastructure, fee structure, recognition, examination timetable, co-curricular activities, scholarships and financial assistance in colleges. A website will be started for the purpose. Nationalised and commercial banks and various government departments and agencies could use this facility for recruiting and training their personnel.

Dr. Acharya said that he was holding a meeting with the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) office bearers on Friday for arriving at a decision on conducting a single CET next year for students in both the government and private colleges registered under it. Last year, the private colleges surrendered more than 5,000 engineering seats to the Government after they found no takers. Hence, a common CET would be beneficial to the private colleges as well.

The Government has, for the past two years, held talks with private managements and consortia led by COMED-K to revert to a single-window admission system. This would mean that students will need to appear for only one qualifying examination for admissions to all professional courses in Karnataka. Currently, students appear for two examinations: the Common Entrance Test and the Undergraduate Entrance Test (UGET conducted by COMED-K).

CET brochure

He said that the brochure for the CET would be published by January or February comprising information such as the number of groups and seats in the colleges. Further, the applications could be submitted online. Raising the number of CET centres will enable the KEA to hasten the declaration of results, he said.

The Minister said that the department has requested the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the Dental Council of India (DCI) to complete all formalities before December 31 so that the KEA could provide correct information to the students and avoid any confusion. During CET 2010, "technical glitches" in uploading the seat matrix by the AICTE had created confusion during the counselling process, inconveniencing students and parents.

Refund

Dr. Acharya also said that the batch of medical and dental students, who joined the courses during 2006-07 paying higher fees, would get refund this year too. Already, the Government had paid Rs. 14 crore for the purpose in the past three years.

by The Hindu -Thursday, 11 November 2010