Karnataka KCET Likely To Be A Pan-India Test
New Delhi:
The demand to make Karnataka Common Entrance Test (K-CET) a pan-India test has been raised again. Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) conducts the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (CET) to offer admission to students in state’s engineering colleges. CN Ashwathnarayan, as per Bangalore Mirror, said that in the present time, all the private universities in the state are conducting separate as well as multiple entrance exams to fill up their management quota engineering seats. This is resulting in hardships for the students.
In addition to this Karnataka Education Minister said that if all the private educational institutions agree, the government is ready to conduct the Common Entrance Test (CET) at the national level from the Karnataka Examinations Authority.
The minister recently conducted a meeting with Chancellors, Vice-Chancellors, and registrars of all the private educational institutions which offers engineering courses in the state. Presently, the government quota engineering seats in private institutions are filled based on the state CET rank. However, about 60 percent of management seats are being filled by deemed varsities or private institutes via a separate entrance test. These separate tests are causing stress to the students.
Mr Ashwathnarayan in addition to his statement highlighted the suggestion of the Supreme Court. Since the apex court has also shared its opinion earlier that only one CET should be done in the country.
Professor Jawahar, Chancellor of People’s Education Society (PES) University, in light of this said that since Karnataka Education Authority (KEA) does not conduct national-level examinations, we have made a separate arrangement for CET. They have no objection to conducting a single Common Entrance Test at the national level by KEA itself.
Karnataka Education Minister, CN Ashwathnarayan has also directed the Higher Education Department’s Principal Secretary, V Rashmi Mahesh, to hold separate meetings shortly regarding the same. The minister also received complaints regarding a few universities charging additional fees for government quota seats. Ashwathnarayan said such unethical practices should be prohibited under any circumstances.
Prior to this, the Karnataka state government announced to merge the Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) entrance test with the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (K-CET). But the COMED-K denied to be part of the K-CET conducted test in the future.