To make things easier for students vying for seats in professional courses, the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) has decided to develop and launch an app that will address concerns commonly faced during the admission process.
The app will be released later this year for Android phones. The aim, said officials, was to help students register on the app so that they can complete the various stages of the process such as viewing the seat matrix of different courses, keying in their options, and even making fee payment.
The Common Entrance Test (CET) is a gateway for admission to courses such as engineering, agriculture, pharmacy, and veterinary science. Last year, 1.8 lakh candidates appeared for the CET.
Another crucial feature of the app would be that it will help students get their documents verified online. Currently, students have to come to KEA centres to get their documents verified manually although all the other processes are online. Attempts made by the KEA in the past to get documents verified online have gone in vain as some Education Department documents had not been digitised. If the online verification is successful this time, it will spell the end of the long waiting period at the KEA centres.
A senior official in the KEA said they had decided to go digital and become more tech-savvy after they received feedback from teachers and students. “Demonstrations will be given to all students, and help desks set up particularly for the benefit of students from rural areas,” said the official.
However, the authority is also planning to keep the online facility as an option.
Students are thrilled over the move, but hope that the KEA would be able to address any technical glitch. Arun S., who plans to write the CET this year, said, “It sounds like a good move. But officials need to ensure that we do not face problems, and that there are mock counselling rounds like in the past years for the online process,” he said.
