Following the recommendation of the Indian Nursing Council, the State government has made the Common Entrance Test (CET) mandatory for B.Sc. Nursing from this year.
The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) is planning to conduct CET for B.Sc. Nursing courses and it will announce the notification and open the CET-2023 online application from April 14 for three days.
Ramya S., executive director of KEA, said: “The government has made CET mandatory for B.Sc. Nursing courses entrance in the State. We will announce the notification and re-release the CET online application from April 14 for three days. We will conduct counselling, announce the seat matrix, and allot the government and management quota seats for the course from this year.”
Earlier, B.Sc. Nursing seats were allotted through KEA without any entrance test. The KEA had called an online application from eligible candidates and allotted only 20% of government quota seats on the basis of II PU science courses marks.
However, to improve the quality of nursing sciences education, the Indian Nursing Council decided to allot the B.Sc. Nursing course seats through CET from the academic year of 2023-24 and sent the proposal to all the State governments in this regard.
“The Indian Nursing Council has made mandatory of CET to the B.Sc. Nursing courses and instructed to implement it in the State. We referred this notice to the State government and it will be implemented,” said K. Ravi, director for Directorate of Medical Education.
According to sources, conducting CET for B.Sc. Nursing courses will avoid fake and unauthorised nursing colleges and capitation mafia in the State.
According to the KEA data, there are 498 registered nursing colleges in the State offering around 35,000 nursing seats. Earlier, the KEA had allotted total of 7,332 government quota sets (20%) and the rest of the seats were filled by the nursing institutions as management quota seats.
But there were allegations of private nursing institutions mushrooming in an unauthorised manner in the State. According to the State Health Ministry, there are around 850 nursing colleges in Karnataka, of which 352 colleges are running illegally. The Health Ministry had announced a committee to conduct a review in all these institutions.
“These unauthorised colleges are concentrating only on nursing course aspirants from outside the State and they will sell the seats for big money. Most of these colleges doesn’t have proper infrastructure. Therefore, CET is the best method to avoid all these irregularities in nursing education,” sources said.
