The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Online CAP picks up pace

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 13, 2006

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Online CAP picks up pace

G. Mahadevan

Flurry of activity at facilitation centres

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the Internet-based allotment process for engineering and medical colleges in the State entered its third day on Wednesday, scores of students flocked to the six facilitation centres and helpdesks in the city set up to help those with no access to computers or the Internet.

Right from 9 a.m., when the centres opened, there was a rush of students to log on to `cee.kerala.gov.in,' the designated website for submitting course-college options. In all the four facilitation centres, the College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram(CET), Government Engineering College, Barton Hill, the LBS Institute of Technology, Poojappura, and the Sree Chithra College of Engineering, Pappanamcode, staff were deployed in strength to assist students in the online centralised allotment process (CAP).

The two helpdesks that were opened were at University Engineering College, Karyavattom, and at College of Agriculture, Vellayani.

At the engineering college, Barton Hill, the students were first given a printout of the `worksheet' on the webpage so that they could practise marking the options before actually logging on to the website. They were helped in this exercise by the college staff who explained the process step by step and also answered queries posed by students and parents. At the CET, students of the MCA programme were asked to assist those arriving to participate in the online CAP.

According to officials at the facilitation centres, the average time taken by a candidate to finish submitting the course-college options was 45 minutes. There were also those who took more than two hours to submit the options. There were yet others who came to these centres on Wednesday to verify and/or update the options they had submitted from Internet cafes in the city over the last two days.

While the students who spoke to The Hindu were appreciative of the online method for allotment of seats, some students said it would be tension-filled days till July 23 when the first allotment list would be published.

Lakshya Sharma, who came this morning to the engineering college, Barton Hill, to submit his options said the new system appeared to benefit those with higher ranks more than it did others.

Just as the facilitation centre at the LBS Institute was about to shut shop for the day, four students from Bihar arrived to submit options.

According to Manoj Kumar, a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the college, the four students wanted to know in detail about each aspect of the online process and how to go about choosing one college over the other. The students said that the placement facilities in engineering colleges in Bihar were very poor, Mr. Manoj added.

The office of the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations and the National Informatics Centre have made arrangements at the facilitation centres to help candidates who have lost their admit cards or who cannot remember the password they set for accessing the CAP's web page.

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