CHENNAI: The stage is set for the counselling process for admissions to the professional courses to start. The medical counselling, which is a much shorter exercise, may begin around July 22 and wind up by the July 25 deadline set by the Medical Council of India. Immediately thereafter, counselling for admissions to the engineering colleges, through the single-window system (SWS), is expected to begin. Perhaps the confusion among the students for this year may have come to an end. But the students now in the XII standard remain utterly confused. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, while admitting that her Government had "little choice" for this year, promised to come up with a new system for next year.

She said in her July 8 statement: "Every effort will be made to get the regulations of the Medical Council of India functioning under the Union Health Ministry and other such regulations for professional courses which specify the requirement of a Common Entrance Test modified. Other alternatives will also be explored after due consultation with all concerned so that a solution can be arrived at... The people of Tamil Nadu can feel assured that my Government will spare no effort in ensuring that from next academic year, a suitable system which supports rural students is implemented." The question agitating the minds of students and parents alike is `What system can that be?' What will be a viable, transparent, legal and acceptable alternative to the Common Entrance Test (CET)? Apparently, the Government wants to scrap the CET. But the rules and regulations of the Medical and Dental Councils as well as the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) do not permit that. As students from different streams want to enter the professional courses, these apex councils insist on a CET to provide a level-playing field for entry into the courses so that there can be a common test of the students' abilities. This is particularly so when students from the State Board secure centums in four subjects, while those from the Central Board or other national streams can manage just 95 per cent. As a minimum, what the State Government can do is to ensure that there will be just one CET, the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE), to be conducted by Anna University. At least the consortia or associations of private self-financing colleges can be stopped from conducting their own CETs.

Academics and administrators argue that it may be very difficult to get the rules or laws laid down by the AICTE, the MCI or the DCI amended. Other States seem to be comfortable with the CET and there may be no consensus on taking recourse to such a drastic step at this stage.

The State Government's concern relates to the bias against the rural students. Unfortunately, even the special 15 per cent reservation provided for rural students was struck down by the courts. The Law department should look at the possibility of undoing that damage and reviving some kind of a reservation for the rural students one way or another. That, education administrators feel, may be the best solution.

Modification

Another option could be to modify the examination system itself so that it combines the existing Plus-Two format and the TNPCEE formulation of testing the students on theory and in the `objective type' of questions. As an interim measure, the CET can be held soon after the Plus-Two public examination so that the urban students do not get too much time to go in for fresh coaching for this examination.

Analyses of the Plus-Two results and also that of the TNPCEE have clearly pointed to an urban bias. Though the mushrooming of "teaching shops" and mass tuitions have no doubt helped prepare students in towns and cities better. But the primary default in the system appears to be the lack of quality and pro-active teachers in the rural areas, especially in Government and local bodies' schools.

Better pay and benefits

Analysts are quick to point out that Government teachers get better pay and benefits, but private, aided and minority institutions get the teachers to perform much better and "push" their students to a higher grade. Field reports from the district headquarter towns clearly show that coaching classes have already begun for next year's CET.

Students do not want to be taken by surprise and have decided to start preparing from now on.

It is up to the Government to take an early decision and announce its plan for 2006-07 well in advance, as the future of thousands of students is at stake.

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