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A progressive online initiative

The procedure for allotting professional course seats to eligible students under the single-window admission system mandated by the Supreme Court that came into effect in 1997 has been taxing for all involved. For students and their parents, navigating one's way through the maze of courses, branches, and colleges has been extremely stressful. This year, in a commendably progressive move, Kerala has brought its Centralised Allotment Process (CAP) on an internet-based platform with the aid of the National Informatics Centre. It is the first State in the country to harness the potential of the internet to make the process more student-friendly and efficient. Within a few hours after the window opened on July 10, more than 7,000 students logged on to the designated website and registered their course and college options. The first round of allotments is to be made by July 23 — online. If all goes well, the do-it-at-home system promises to usher in a qualitative improvement in the way the challenging process is handled, offering more transparency and equity. In previous years, candidates had to report for CAP at specified venues and at specified time slots to give their preferences in respect of courses and colleges from those available at that point of time. The new software-driven automated system will, at one stroke, eliminate the possibility of human error and arbitrariness. The Government has set up across the State facilitation centres and help desks with free internet access. Thus the personal touch available in a traditional counselling process is retained to an extent. The system can be fine-tuned later, to strengthen the element of human interaction that is vital for young people making stressful career-determining decisions. Further, initiatives such as this will become even more effective if an adequate lead time is provided ahead of the launch.

For Kerala, this represents a natural evolutionary step in its drive to e-enable the people, a drive that has continued irrespective of which political front is in power. With the geographical advantage that makes it a landing point on the western coast of international optical fibre communication networks, the State has a good level of broadband connectivity and internet penetration: there is today hardly a village in the State that does not have internet connectivity. Kerala pioneered the Akshaya e-learning programme to take e-literacy to the villages, and the Edusat-based programme to encourage distance learning over a satellite link. It was also the first State to go in for a separate paper in information technology at the secondary school level. The Left Democratic Front Government, and in particular Education Minister M.A. Baby, deserve praise for gearing up so swiftly to fulfil the promise of harnessing state-of-the-art technology for the public good. Here is a model all States should study and apply, with appropriate modifications, to their educational situations.

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