Tamil Nadu   

Whither transparency?

K. Ramachandran

Meritorious students have felt left out

Some of the professional colleges in the State have started making `provisional admissions' for the coming academic year, despite the highest court in the land painstakingly detailing the methodology for admissions to management quota seats.

An August 2005 judgment of the Supreme Court order had clearly stated that governments could not usurp or carve out any seats from unaided institutions.

But in other parts, the order had also ensured that institutions do not turn into unregulated enterprises whose only aim is profit making.

In essence the Bench had said:

Admissions to management quota seats should be done in a fair and transparent manner under a single window system.

The agency conducting the CET must be one that enjoys utmost credibility and expertise in the matter as it would better ensure fulfillment of the twin objectives of transparency and merit.

Activists such as the Students Federation of India State secretary G. Selva note that going by the record in the past two years, there has been little transparency in the CET conducted by private college associations. No merit list had been published and made available in public domain. Those who have been watching the trend for the past few years note that this year the problem is getting worse as self-financing colleges are not a united force anymore. Two or three associations are claiming stake for conducting the CET.

Career Analyst Jayaprakash Gandhi, who has raised the issue with the individual colleges and associations, notes: "With no unity between the colleges it would be hard to believe as to whether the CET conducted by any association will be fair and transparent, compared to that conducted by Anna University. In fact, many students from Coimbatore, Chennai, Salem and Erode have written to the Chairman of Permanent Committee (Justice S.S. Subramani) saying they don't have much faith in the CET conducted by any consortium."

`A mere formality'

The CET is a mere formality for meeting some eligibility criteria and no more, he asserts. In this situation, it would be better the Government steps in (for which the Supreme Court judgment makes a clear provision) and ensures that the CET conducted by any consortium is done so under strict supervision and in a fair and transparent manner and admission is based only under a single window system.

There is enough reason for concern among students on this count. Tamil Nadu has about 70,000 seats in engineering and about 10,000 in medical/paramedical streams among affiliated and unaided institutions. But going by the present trends, unaided colleges are expected to surrender voluntarily only 25,000 seats or so for the government quota. Along with Anna University, government aided colleges, less than 30,000 seats will be available for the single window pool filled as government quota.

"We hear reports of colleges filling seats provisionally, which shows a reluctance to adhere to merit. We hope that the Justice Subramani Committee will clearly tell the colleges to go strictly by the Supreme Court order along for management quota seat admissions... " Mr. Gandhi adds.

Mr. Selva says that after the Plus-Two results are announced and the TNPCEE is held, there might be students from here and also outside the State who will seek admissions to management quota seats. "If need be, we want the Government to conduct a second CET for this purpose... It should be possible," he adds. On Wednesday, half a dozen colleges in western Tamil Nadu met at Erode to discuss the surrender of seats but ended with no consensus among the participants.

Talking to college heads, one realises that it is the management quota seats that is helping colleges to create "even a reasonable surplus" for providing value addition to engineering courses. They note that in the neighbouring States, the Government has offered 15 - 20 per cent of the seats `under management quota' where the colleges may look at a differential fee rate (compared to the government fixed fee for the other 80 per cent seats).

Some of the institutions are veering around to the view that this could perhaps be a formula that Tamil Nadu could also look at.

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