CET likely to be made open for non-K’taka students as well

All is set for CET to be made open to non-Karnataka students as well. The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) is likely to yield to the pressure from private colleges, which have been demanding to make the Common Entrance Test (CET) open to the non-Karnataka students also.

Such a move to house non-Karnataka students too in its educational sector would be the first of its kind in the state since February 18, 2005.

It is inferred that the KEA officials have given their nod and taking the hint, the Chairman of the Forum for Unaided Engineering Colleges, BT Lakshman said that all the colleges concerned have been informed to join CET or the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges (COMED). He added that most of the colleges are willing to join CET if the non-Karnataka students too are admitted.

He explained that while students normally fill up 50 per cent of the state’s engineering seats through the Common Entrance Test, 15 per cent of the total seats are reserved for NRI students and 10 per cent is set apart under the management quota.

The colleges now plan to allot the remaining 25 percent seats to the non-Karnataka students. Earlier, these seats were filled up through COMED. However, the college managements want the fee structure to be altered under the new system.

Meanwhile, according to the statement released by Medical Education Minister Ramchandra Gowda on February 1, the government had decided to follow the last year’s fee structure itself. This had further infuriated the private college managements and making their disagreement clear, the managements said they were yet to arrive on a consensus both on the seat matrix and on the fee structure crisis and could not thereby accept the proposed deal at present.

It is least likely to admit non-Karnataka students in the existing CET quota. The formal announcement in this matter, which is likely to be made on February 10, is indeed a crucial one in the backdrop of the government stand for a unified CET pattern.

Earlier, a meeting convened for the purpose by college managements for deciding on the fee fixation process had failed to produce results since no common grounds could be reached on the issue of seat-sharing and fee structure.

However, the private college managements would again meet for arriving at a consensus before taking the issue before the government.

President of the Rashtriya Sikshana Samithi Trust, Panduranga Shetty strongly expressed his disagreement in following the previous year’s fee structure of Rs 15,000 and Rs 25,000. He added that the colleges had to spend about Rs 90,000 on each student every year.

He wanted the government to increase the amount collected from students in the wake of the pay scale revision that has been introduced by the All India Council for Technical Education. The pay scale revision has further increased the financial crisis of college managements by about 60 per cent.

Sources in COMED also hinted that they strongly suggest fee hike since no such moves have been undertaken in the past two years.

During the previous year, it was through the Karnataka Examinations Authority that 42 per cent of the total seats in the government-unaided colleges and 27 per cent in minority institutions were distributed.