The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Panel to discuss common entrance test modalities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Panel to discuss common entrance test modalities

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, APRIL 23. A committee headed by the retired judge, S.S. Subramani, will meet here on April 30 to discuss the modalities of "ensuring fair and transparent conduct of common entrance tests" (CET) by various groups of unaided professional colleges.

The committee has been constituted according to last year's Supreme Court's judgment in the case of "Islamic Academy of Education vs. State of Karnataka" that management quota seats be filled through a CET conducted by the State or Central government or an association of self-financing colleges of a similar type.

Tamil Nadu has more than 70,000 seats in 240 engineering colleges. At least, 30,000 of these are likely to come under the management quota. The number can change if some unaided colleges surrender more seats for the single-window pool for engineering/medical admissions.

The committee will have powers to oversee the tests conducted by the association of colleges, including calling for question papers to know the names of those setting the question papers and examiners, and to check the method adopted to ensure that the papers are not leaked.

According to information with unaided colleges, the chairman has coopted into the committee a senior professional and Tamil Virtual University Vice-Chancellor, V. Sankaranayaranan. As per the court order, the Higher Education Secretary of the State is another member.

The associations of self-financing institutions, representing religious/linguistic minorities and non-minority groups have been formed in the State. Each of them claims that it will conduct its own entrance examination. However, one group has given to the government a letter stating 140 institutions will follow only the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examinations (TNPCEE).

A few other institutions have a different explanation on the need for separate CETs. In an appeal presented to the committee chairman, the Association of Minority Unaided Christian Institutions (AMUCI) said that in the "TMA Pai case", the Supreme Court observed that minority institutions could adopt their own admission procedure. In the Islamic Academy of Education case, it further clarified that the rights of the minorities should be protected, and fairness and transparency in holding the examinations would also be maintained if the minority institutions reached a consensus through their association or federation to hold a CET under the supervision of the monitoring committee.

Tamil Nadu has more than 220 unaided engineering colleges and hundreds of arts and science colleges offering MCA/MBA courses, which come under the purview of the All-India Council for Technical Education. It will not be possible for all colleges to come under one association.

Also, not all students passing the higher secondary examination are sitting for the TNPCEE. But, after the publication of the Plus-Two examination results, some of them may wish to join professional courses and these students should have some option to pursue their ambition, according to the AMUCI plea.

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