In an initiative to streamline academic year for higher education in Andhra Pradesh, the Government has announced schedules for conducting seven major entrance tests, including EAMCET, to about 20 professional courses and commence classes, by and large, from August first week.
This unprecedented step has been taken in compliance with the directive issued by the Supreme Court to States to achieve a uniform academic year schedule in the entire country.
Deputy Chief Minister C. Damodar Rajanarsimha, who released the schedule at a media conference in Hyderabad on Tuesday, said the EAMCET would be held on May 10, 2013 and its results announced in June. The first round counselling would take place on June 30 and the subsequent rounds by July 31.
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The notifications for entrance tests of ICET (admissions into MBA, MCA), ECET (lateral entry into engineering courses from polytechnics), LAWCET, PGLCET (law courses), PECET and PGECET (physical education at degree and post-graduate levels) would be issued in February for conduct of the tests in May/June. Notifications for EdCET (admission into B. Ed course), however, would be issued in March, the test to be held on June 3 and results declared on June 21.
On the other hand, the first round of admissions based on the merit lists of these tests would take place on different dates in June-July, second and last phases in July-August. The classes for all courses would commence in July last week or August first week. Answering questions, Mr Rajanarsimha said the “B” category seats (management quota) would be filled online from now onwards, strictly based on merit in line with a High Court order. A decision, however, would be taken soon on whether NRIs should be given priority in this category. He said task forces had inspected 99 p.c. of the engineering colleges in the State, verifying their claims over infrastructure/faculty based on which they were collecting different rates of fee. He said a legislation would be enacted to give more teeth to the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee, the competent authority to fix fee in an engineering college etc.