The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Confusion, controversy, crisis of confidence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 12, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Confusion, controversy, crisis of confidence

By V. Jayanth

CHENNAI, JULY 11. Problems just do not seem to end for students seeking admission to engineering and medical colleges. Instead of waiting for results and counselling, they are now looking forward to High Court judgments.

Adding to the issues which have surfaced in the past two months is the increasing demand for the resignation of the Anna University Vice-Chancellor and the conduct of a fresh Tamil Nadu Engineering Entrance Examination (TNPCEE). It may not happen, but the very thought scares the students and raises the blood pressure of parents. They have been driven to such an extent.

At the root of this year's crisis in the admissions is the August 14, 2003 apex court verdict on the powers and freedom available to private, unaided professional colleges, including minority institutions. Though that judgment had far-reaching implications, universities, State Governments and private colleges took their time to study its import. It was only in March 2004 that the Tamil Nadu Government, for instance, constituted the Permanent Committee, headed by retired Justice S.S. Subramani to lay down guidelines and monitor admissions. The Government also set up the Raman committee to prescribe the fee structure. These reports were released in early June, by which time the TNPCEE was over and the Plus-Two results released.

An association of self-financing engineering colleges, which earlier decided to adopt the TNPCEE marks for admission, floated a consortium and decided on May 12 to conduct its own Common Entrance Test (CET). That will be held on July 24-25.

On top of all this, the confusion and controversy over the TNPCEE is before the First Bench of the Madras High Court, which is considering two important cases: the `improvement marks' case and the consortium case, in which some of the prescriptions of the Permanent Committee have been challenged. The arguments are going on and it should take a while before the verdict is out. The final list of admission to medical colleges, and consequently the engineering colleges, is linked to this ruling. Obviously, the students are expected to prefer medicine to engineering. To avoid an overlap with the engineering seats, academics and students alike want the medical admissions to be wrapped up first so that top rankers do not take away engineering seats and then give them up.

As a result of a single judge order, the TNPCEE marks for 22 questions were modified, which sparked a controversy. The Bench has asked the university to put off engineering counselling. It does not mind fresh counselling for medicine, if a need arises, because of another question of law — seniority in age as a parameter between first time appearance and `improvement mark' candidates.

While medical counselling is already over, engineering counselling was supposed to have started on July 5 for the mainstream students. It could now take a week or two for that process to begin and it could stretch for a month. The CET by the consortium is slated for July 24, after which ranking and counselling must begin.

Parents feel that Tamil Nadu, which perfected the system of TNPCEE and multi-centre counselling, has unfortunately got into a ``crisis situation'' this year. They wish the authorities could have stuck to the old system and sought leave from the apex court to adopt the new methodology from 2005 once the new structures are in place. ``It is not just a late start, but a false start this year, which has created so much confusion and tension to all of us,'' laments Stanley Jesudoss, whose son's admission hangs in the balance.

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