Students who studied Electronics and Computer Sciences as optional subjects in their pre-university course have a reason to smile as their aspiration to get admission to engineering courses can now become a reality. The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday directed the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) and the Visvesvaraya Technological University to treat these two subjects as “Technical Vocational Subjects” and consider the marks obtained by students in these two subjects in the II PUC exams for calculating the minimum 45 per cent aggregate marks to be scored by students in two compulsory and one optional subjects to become eligible for engineering course.
Impact
The impact of this order is that students who could not get aggregate 45 per cent marks will now have a chance to get eligibility as the authorities will have to take into consideration the particular optional subject in which the student scored higher marks among the two optional subjects, including Electronics and Computer Science.
As a result, more number of students will become eligible for admission to engineering courses for the academic year 2012-13 and the KEA will have to include them in the rank-list before starting counselling.
Justice Ashok B. Hinchigeri passed the order while allowing the petitions filed by engineering-aspirant students, Kaushik, Arjun V. Rao and Siddarth, challenging non-consideration of higher marks scored by them in these two subjects as the norms of All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) did not recognise these subjects as optional subjects.
However, AICTE, on Wednesday, informed the court that it had issued a corrigendum for 2012-13 norms stating that optional subjects include “Chemistry/Biotechnology/Biology/Technical Vocational Subjects”.
The AICTE further clarified to the court that “Technical Vocational Subjects” include both Electronics and Computer Science subjects.
Till the academic year 2010-11, the minimum aggregate marks was being calculated based on the total marks scored in the II PUC exams by the students in the two compulsory subjects, Physics and Mathematics, and in one of the optional subjects, Chemistry, Biology, Biotechnology, Electronics or Computer Science.
However, the State Government, in March 2011, issued a notification stating that marks secured in the two compulsory subjects of Physics and Mathematics, and the optional subjects of only Chemistry, Biology, Biotechnology would be considered for calculating minimum aggregate marks.
AICTE norms
This was because the AICTE norms for 2011-12 stated “candidates should have passed the 10+2 exam with Physics and Mathematics as compulsory subjects along with one of the Chemistry, Biotechnology, Biology with at least 45 per cent marks (40 per cent in case of candidates belonging to reserved category) in the above subjects taken together.”
