The Hindu : `No efforts to resolve admissions row'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

`No efforts to resolve admissions row'

By T.V. Sivanandan

GULBARGA June 7. The State Government and the managements of private unaided professional colleges appear to be on a collision course on the question of admitting students and fixing the new fee structure for courses this year as per the directions of the Full Bench of the Supreme Court.

The President of the Hyderabad Karnataka Education Society, B.G. Jawali, a member of the Association of Managements of Unaided Professional Colleges in the State, told The Hindu here today that the association had rejected the Government's notification on admissions to professional colleges announced recently, since it was against the essence of the Supreme Court direction.

He said the association, besides challenging the Government's notification in the Supreme Court, had decided at its meeting in Bangalore on Thursday to announce its own schedule of admissions to medical, dental, engineering, and other professional courses, and fix a fee structure which would vary from one college to another, based on the facilities available.

Dr. Jawali alleged that the Government was not interested in finding a solution to the problem of admissions to professional courses in the light of the recent Supreme Court directions.He said that though admissions to professional courses would be based on the rank list prepared by the Government in the Common Entrance Test (CET) conducted by it this year, unaided professional colleges would conduct their own CET from next year in a "more scientific and transparent manner" to select students for admission. Dr. Jawali said professional colleges had framed their own rules for admissions and for evolving a fee structure based on the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court. He clarified that there would not be any discrimination in the fee structure for students admitted to different professional courses. However, the managements would offer scholarships to students from the economically weaker sections and from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. About 20 per cent of the total seats available in medical, dental, and engineering courses would carry scholarships offered by private managements, he indicated.

He said the Consortium of Medical and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (Comed) had published the calendar for submission of applications by students based on the CET ranking. Interested students could download application forms from the website, www.comed.k.2003. The applications would be available from June 15, and the last date for submitting them was June 25. Colleges would publish the list of students with merit on July 3, and counselling and admission would begin on July 22. The dates announced by Comed was likely to change.

Dr. Jawali said counselling would be provided by private managements in Bangalore for all colleges. Counselling and allotment of students to individual colleges by the Government, as was the practice so far, would not be accepted.

He said the fee for the medical course would be between Rs. 2.25 lakh and Rs. 2.75 lakh a year, and that for the dental course about Rs. 1.5 lakh. The fee for engineering courses would be between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1 lakh a year.

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