Although students have to write the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) from 2017-18, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) will continue conducting counselling sessions for students for government and government-quota seats. This will be done as usual by chalking out a rank list, but this time based on NEET scores instead of CET.
The government seats will be allotted in accordance with the Karnataka Selection of Candidates for Admission to Government Seats in Professional Educational Institutions Rules, 2006 which have been used all these years. The KEA, to help students cope with the changes, has created a link with information on question paper pattern, eligibility criteria, how to register for the exam, syllabus and a sample of last year’s NEET papers.
Sources pointed out that the State government had made an early announcement as there was a lot of chaos last year and students had written multiple entrance tests without knowing which one would finally be considered valid. “Things changed dramatically for students after the Supreme Court late in April made an announcement that NEET should be conducted. The situation changed after the Union government brought an ordinance allowing some State governments to fill government quota seats as many States had already conducted their entrance exams,” the source explained. The move has been welcomed by students but they said there is a need for the government to also convince private college managements to be part of the same counselling process so that students can enrol themselves for a single session. “In the 2016-17 academic year, although NEET was conducted, it was meaningless as we still had to apply to multiple counselling agencies and to individual deemed universities to get a seat. It made things confusing. Hopefully the government will consider students’ plight and switch to a single counselling mechanism,” an MBBS student said.
