“Several State governments do not want a single entrance test for admissions to engineering colleges, which is delaying the process,” said Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), here on Wednesday.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the International Conclave on Learning Ecosystem organised by IFIM Business School and added that the council for the last two years had been pitching several advantages that students would face if one common entrance test was held. He said that many State governments were not keen as the curriculum needed to be changed and all of them needed to follow a common curriculum prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education. (CBSE).
“It should be one common entrance test held at least two or three times a year. This will help students from poor backgrounds as they do not have to travel to multiple cities to appear for different tests,” he said. But as education was on the concurrent list, there was a need for them to have State governments on board to implement this idea. “The proposal for this is not closed down, but it is not on for the coming academic year,” Prof. Sahasrabudhe said, and added that AICTE would engage in a dialogue and discussion with the State governments and ensure that it came into force.
After the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) was introduced for medical and dental seats across the country, several coaching classes over the past year had tweaked their teaching methodology and had begun training for students for a common entrance test for engineering courses which they thought would be conducted across the nation. They also provided coaching for the CET held by Karnataka Examinations Authority.
“The chairman’s comment now makes it clear that there is no proposal of the common test for engineering admissions in the near future, so will stop training students for the same,” said an official of a city-based coaching institute.
No new colleges
The chairman also said that the restriction of opening new institutes for the next two years is applicable to engineering colleges as well as pharmacy colleges.
He however added that the council would grant permission for new government colleges in aspirational districts if there was no other government college there.