The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : CET Cell will soon be an agency for entrance tests

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Friday, Nov 03, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

CET Cell will soon be an agency for entrance tests

Staff Reporter

It may be allowed to hold entrance tests for private firms

Bangalore: The State Government is thinking of expanding scope of the Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell to conduct entrance tests for private agencies, software companies and banks, Minister for Higher Education D.H. Shankarmurthy has said.

He told presspersons here on Thursday that the expertise of the CET Cell, which had been conducting admissions to professional courses, could be used to help private firms, educational institutions and other agencies to recruit the right talent.

He said nothing had been finalised as of now but if this happened, the CET Cell would become a service provider for not just government institutions but outside organisations for a fee.

Mr. Shankaramurthy said there was a proposal to use the infrastructure and technological expertise of the CET Cell for evaluating answer papers of all the universities in Karnataka.

"We are planning to have a common academic calendar for all the universities. By using technology, the answer scripts for the university examinations could be corrected at the CET Cell," he said.

Admissions

Regarding admission to professional colleges, Mr. Shankaramurthy said that to put an end to multiple tests and fee structure, the State Government planned to hold one entrance test for students seeking admissions to professional courses (medical, dental and engineering) from next year.

"Talks are on with private college managements and some of them have expressed their desire to have a common entrance test conducted by the CET Cell for government and private college managements. We are trying to work it out," he said.

The CET Cell will then hold one entrance test for all medical, dental and engineering colleges. This year the CET Cell, the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka and minority institutions held separate tests for admissions.

He said the Government was thinking of reducing the seat selection and counselling time by half so that the whole process could be finished in a month.

"We are exploring the possibility of holding counselling at examination centres at the district and taluk level, maybe through video conferencing so that the students do not have to travel to Bangalore," he said.

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