The Hindu : Karnataka News : Separate entrance test for MBA/MCA management quota

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 08, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Separate entrance test for MBA/MCA management quota

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, MAY 7. For first time, around 40 of the 60 MBA/MCA colleges in the State have decided to come together to conduct a separate entrance test to fill their management quota seats.

The colleges, under the banner of the Karnataka Private Postgraduate Colleges Association (KPPCA), will conduct a parallel Common Entrance Test (CET) in the last week of June.

C.N. Krishna Reddy, president of KPPCA, told presspersons here today that there were 2,200 MBA seats available to students in Karnataka, of which 400 were government quota seats. While the Visweswaraiah Technological University (VTU) would conduct a CET for government quota seats in all MBA/MCA colleges in July, the KPPCA would conduct its own test, he said.

The association had sought permission from the State Government and the Venkataraman Committee overseeing professional college admissions to conduct the test, but it was yet to receive a reply. "We have decided to go ahead with the test," he said.

The Supreme Court had ruled that institutions offering MBA/MCA courses and postgraduate diploma courses in Business Management and Business Administration should fill their management quota seats either through a written test conducted by the VTU or by means of a common entrance test conducted by an association of such colleges.

The test would be conducted by the association as per the guidelines of the Venkataraman Committee, Mr. Reddy added.

W.P. Krishna, secretary of the association, said the KPPCA had urged the Government to continue the seat-sharing ratio of 50:50, which was fixed during the last academic year, for government and management quota seats. The association would go by the fee structure fixed by the Murgod Committee for MBA and MCA courses. "We request the Government to take a final decision on the seat-sharing ratio, as soon as possible," he said.

Of the 60 colleges that offer MBA/MCA courses, 28 colleges are affiliated to Bangalore University.

The representatives of the association said a public notice issued by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) late last year had given the MBA/MCA colleges the option of choosing one of the five all-India tests — CAT (conducted by IIMs), JMET (conducted by IITs), MAT (conducted by AIMA), ATMA (conducted by AIMS) and XAT (conducted by XLRI) — to admit students to their management quota seats. The Venkataraman panel, however, had stated that the colleges could not use these tests as a basis since it was not contemplated in the Supreme Court order. Besides, it was difficult to assess the relative merit of the students based on such tests, the panel had said.

The association had sought clarifications from the Venkataraman Committee and the AICTE on this issue, they said.

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