Students seeking admission to professional courses through the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) for 2012-13 may modify their options any number of times during online selection of colleges and courses between July 12 and 18, according to C. Suresh Thunga, nodal officer, Mangalore helpline centre of KEA.
Addressing presspersons here on Tuesday, which was the last day of document-verification round, Mr. Thunga said that students would have to select the college and course of their choice using the secret keyword given to them after verifying their documents.
He said that each time a student modified his option of a college and course he or she had to click on the “update” in the computer. Otherwise, the centralised computer system would lock the old option entered as the final.
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He said that irrespective of the number of choices of colleges and courses a student had entered, the computer system would allot he or she only one seat, based on the rank, while allotment on July 25. The seat allotted might be in medical, dental, engineering, ayurveda, homoeopathy, unani, naturopathy, yoga or architecture courses.
No two seats like one in engineering and another in medical or dental would be allotted. Hence, students would have to enter the order of preference of their options of courses and colleges carefully.
Mr. Thunga said that the helpline centre at the National Institute of Technology – Karnataka (NIT-K) in Surathkal had only 15 computers (of the NIT-K).
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They were of old model and internet connectivity was slow at the institute. Hence, candidates were advised not to come to NIT-K for making option entries. If many of them visited NIT-K, they might have to wait for long. The KEA could not impose any time limit for any student to complete the option entry.
Thus, each student making option entry at NIT-K might take his or her own time to give the option. Students could use the internet facility at their homes or other places. This would provide them greater degree of freedom and privacy in making option entries, he said.
Mr. Thunga cautioned students not to fall prey to the designs of some educational institutes which claimed to have made arrangements at their computer laboratories for making online option entries. There might be chances of students getting misguided there.
“Our sincere advice to students is not to be influenced by external forces in deciding their choices,” he said.
The nodal officer said that it was one of the reasons why the KEA set up all its 13 helpline centres in the State this year in government educational institutes.
He said that students had been given a handbook and a compact disc which explained online option entry. They could also log on to the website of the KEA to know about it.
P.P. Joseph and Ramesh, assistant nodal officers, were present.