The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : EAMCET panel makes sweeping recommendations

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

EAMCET panel makes sweeping recommendations

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, APRIL 11. Weightage of 50 per cent Intermediate marks, removal of cut-off marks, changes in the test pattern and creation of fool-proof Intermediate examination system constituted the core recommendations of the high-power Committee on EAMCET that submitted its report to the Government recently.

The Andhra Pradesh State Council for Higher Education, Chairman, K.C. Reddy, disclosed the recommendations to the media on Monday and requested academics, parents and students to respond and give their suggestions.

He said the policy of the Government would be formulated based on the feedback on these recommendations. "The policy would be declared in the first week of June and it would come into effect from 2007," he said.

Apex court verdict

The committee felt that after five years after the introduction of the new system qualifying marks could alone be considered as the sole criterion for admission into all professional courses.

"The idea perhaps was to ensure that Intermediate education be given importance to strengthen the knowledge base of students," Prof. Reddy said. However, Prof. Reddy clarified that the Supreme Court judgment that entrance tests were mandatory for admissions into professional courses would be kept in mind if at all the changes were to be incorporated.

To ensure fair play if the weightage is given, the committee recommended that students should be jumbled for practical examinations too and those marks should also be included in the weightage consideration. The committee felt the need to conduct the test in two sessions for both engineering and medical streams with the first session reserved for the core subjects of mathematics and biology and the second session for physics and chemistry. Each session should be of 150 minutes carrying 120 questions and marks.

Regarding the content, it recommended that analytical type, matching and grouping type questions be included along with objective type questions. "The evaluation of the test must be through computer only," it felt.

The committee members were also of the view that a separate department or a cell should be created in the APSCHE to conduct common entrance tests for all professional courses.

The committee was headed by the former Vice-Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), P. Dayaratnam, while the other members were G. Shamsunder, former Vice-Chancellor, NTR University of Health Sciences; I.V. Subba Rao, former Vice-Chancellor of Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University; T. Venka Reddy, former Director of Collegiate Education, and Romana Fernandes, former principal, St. Francis College for Women.

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