If you are an aspirant for an MBA seat under the government quota in the State and have neither appeared nor applied for the CMAT, you may end up wasting a whole year before you can try again.
This is because appearing for the nationally-administered CMAT is now mandatory for MBA admissions, as it has replaced the State’s Post Graduate Common Entrance Test (PGCET) from the academic year 2013-14.
But, with the Higher Education Department officials in the State learning that only a small percentage of the aspiring students had applied for CMAT-2 scheduled this month, the State government has decided to go to the rescue of the students.
According to the officials, the second CMAT has elicited very poor response due to lack of awareness among the students, as a result of which the government will make an appeal to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to either conduct another CMAT this April or May, or allow the PGCET to be conducted this time.
The AICTE is conducting two CMATs — one was held in September-October last year, and another is scheduled for February 21 to 25.
The number of candidates from Karnataka appearing for CMAT-1 is also believed to be poor.
Each candidate is eligible to appear in both the exams and the better of two scores will be used for the admission for each academic year.
Last year, 19,900 candidates appeared for the PGCET for MBA seats, which was conducted by the KEA for the first time (until then, the Visvesvaraya Technological University was conducting the exams).
Circular
The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), had, in a recent circular, announced that only CMAT scores would be considered for admissions in MBA programmes in all AICTE approved institutions and universities from 2013-14. A government letter sent to 18 universities in the State early last month said that the AICTE decision was taken to “reduce the burden of students” caused by writing multiple exams.
But, the KEA realised that only 3,000 candidates had applied for the CMAT from Karnataka.
“There are 24,500 government seats in 436 colleges in the State. Students will lose a year if they have not applied for CMAT,” said a top KEA official.
Sources in the Higher Education Department added, “We have written to the AICTE to either conduct another CMAT or allow us to conduct PGCET this time.”
When contacted, S.S. Mantha, Chairman, AICTE, said that the council would look into the request “sympathetically”.
“We will try accommodating all requests. We had even extended the registration window by a week because of requests,” he said. The registration window for CMAT-2 ended on January 13. He also said that CMAT-test 2 will be conducted in 114 centres across 62 cities.
