The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Suspense over engineering admissions will persist

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 23, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Suspense over engineering admissions will persist

By V. Jayanth

CHENNAI, JUNE 22. Sreedevi passed her Plus-Two examinations with flying colours. Her aggregate mark was 87 per cent. But she did not fare too well in the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examinations (TNPCEE). As she comes under the OC - forward community - category, her parents were not too sure of her getting a ``good seat'' in a ``good college'' in or near Chennai.

So, they sought admission to one of the numerous private, self-financing engineering colleges on Old Mahabalipuram Road. The girl joined a course of her choice. Three weeks ago, her parents paid Rs. 44,000-plus. They have a receipt and there was no capitation fee involved. They were told that the seat was under the ``management quota.''

Just as the relieved parents and the student were waiting for the college to begin for the academic year, the Permanent Committee, set up by the State government under a Supreme Court order, laid bare the admission process. The panel made clear that any admission already made was ``illegal.'' A consortium of colleges had to conduct a common entrance test (CET) or the admission must be done on the basis of the TNPCEE. And this exercise must be followed by a `single-window system' of transparent admissions across the State. Again, this could be under the Anna University banner or by the consortium. Any admission outside this process would not be recognised.

If the authorities got the impression that all confusion had ended and the admission process cleared of all doubts, they are sadly mistaken. The top brass of the consortium promptly denied that any admission had been made, but Anna University estimates that at least 5,000 students have been granted admission by the top 10 colleges in and around Chennai. Now, both the colleges and the parents are trying to figure out whether these admissions can be ``regularised.'' Those familiar with the admission process insist that this cannot be done if the single-window system is adopted to complete the admissions. The cut-off marks will vary and if a student with a higher score wants a particular course in a particular college on the admission day, its calculations can go awry. That is why parents are now trying to find out whether there is anyway of their getting the colleges to refund the fee in full. Some colleges have agreed to do so.

While the university has announced that counselling will begin on July 5 for general quota seats, the consortium of colleges began issuing applications for the CET only on Monday. The test will be held on July 25, after which it will prepare and announce the rankings, before starting with the single-window admissions.

Enquiries show that the university may complete its process by then, leaving it to the consortium to pick up the thread from there. Though seats are a problem of plenty, not all colleges are sought after and the suspense will drag into August and September.

The university will fill up 40,000 seats through its process and the authorities expect the number to go up before counselling begins. Another 32,000 seats should come under the other system. Says a university administrator: ``More colleges are getting in touch with us and they have been given the choice between our admission process and that of the consortium. Unless they specifically opt for the consortium, they will come under the Anna University process, the Permanent Committee has ruled.''

Some of the private, self-financing colleges are worried.

A group of colleges, based in the Coimbatore-Erode region, offered 70 per cent of its seats to the university's single-window system even last year. This time these colleges are likely to even enhance it to 80 per cent. That way, they will be sure of not only full admissions but also a transparent system, which will not be challenged.

They are keen on sticking to the merit list and minimising the management quota.

Many more colleges can join that list.

But what is agitating them is how they can be denied a ``basic management quota,'' under which they can admit students of their choice. ``When in Anna University, the government colleges and even in the medical admissions, there is a special quota, why should the managements of private colleges, which have invested crores of rupees in starting the institutions, be denied the right to admit a few on their own,'' asks the chairman of a leading private engineering college here.

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