To prevent engineering seats from going vacant, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has decided to conduct counselling only after the first round of counselling for medical and dental seats is conducted based on the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan on Friday said that counselling was likely to be conducted in October. The academic year for engineering colleges, which has been delayed by four months, will begin in November as stipulated by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Every year, many students opt for engineering seats through the Common Entrance Test (CET) only to surrender them after they obtain either medical or dental seats through their NEET scores. Many top engineering colleges had complained that their seats were vacant as students surrendered them after the last date for filling the seats.
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“If we conduct counselling even before the NEET counselling is done, students who pick seats through CET will surrender the same once they get seats through NEET. To avoid such surrendered seats going vacant, we have decided to wait for the NEET schedule,” a KEA official said.
Dr. Narayan added that the interest of meritorious students would be protected and they would ensure that CET counselling is held before that of COMEDK. Engineering seats in private colleges under COMEDK are three times more expensive than seats available under government quota in private colleges. The Joint Entrance Examination (Main) is scheduled to be held between September 1 and 6, while NEET is scheduled to be held on September 13.
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Deputy Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan has said that the Common Entrance Test (CET) for 2021 will also be a pen and a paper test. For the past several years, the Karnataka Examinations Authority has been planning to switch to the online examination system, but it has not been implemented.
Online document verification
The entire process of counselling, including document verification, will be online this year. This is to avoid crowding at verification centres in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Karnataka Examinations Authority has released the schedule for document verification. Students can upload their documents as per their ranks.
Re-evaluation rules
Students who have applied for re-evaluation or re-totalling will get a fresh ranking once they upload their new marks card. Candidates can email their marks cards to keauthority-ka@nic.in
Grace marks
The Karnataka Examinations Authority has allotted grace marks in all subjects as some of the questions were either ambiguous or wrong. Three grace marks have been allotted for mathematics, two for physics, and one each for chemistry and biology.