For students preparing to take their final year PUC exams, this is the season for 'double worry'. While their focus is certainly on passing out of junior college, they will have to immediately start preparations for another important exam - the Common Entrance Test (CET) that would determine their fate in pursuing a professional course.  

Anxiety is often more for students from rural areas of Karnataka, as they have no coaching centres in their localities and must therefore travel to cities like Bangalore or Mysore to train for CET. After all that, they would still end up wondering if that is enough to compete with the enormously well-equipped students in urban areas.

Now, they can put to rest their worries, as CET coaching is coming close to their doorsteps. Bangalore-based Comat Technologies, in partnership with Vishwa Bharti Institute, is offering online CET coaching through their self-operated kiosks (called Nemmadi centres) located in villages and small towns across the State.

Comat's 780 kiosks are spread across the State with each district having a minimum of 30 of them. The company offers e-governance services through these kiosks - such as printing the land documents for farmers (which they need along with their repayment records each time they apply for loans), caste, income or birth certificates from the government database.

"Besides these services, we also offer Cisco-certified networking course for students in rural areas," says Anil Nair, head of education services at Comat. "But all these activities don't occupy all our kiosks and there has been room for us to add more education services. That's when we thought of CET coaching, which is a widely taken test and so is relevant to all our kiosks."

Equipped with computers, scanners and other devices like webcam, the kiosks are also linked together through V-Sat. Coupled with its studios in Bangalore, the company has the necessary infrastructure for the programme, while partnership with Vishwa Bharti Institute brings in the quality content for the students.

The course content would include study materials and mock tests, besides which VBI's faculty would give daily lectures that will be broadcast live to all the kiosks. "We have loaded our special interactive software in all the computers in the kiosks," Mr Nair discloses. "This software allows students to see and hear the faculty giving lectures at our studios as well as let them post their queries and doubts in text form without disturbing the flow of the lecture. This way, they can get their doubts clarified."

The 100 hour long course content is adequate for students to take the test with confidence.

The lectures will go live to all the kiosks from March 28 to April 17, two days before the CET. Mr Nair says the company has been in touch with principals for PU Colleges in rural areas and is hopeful of reaching out to around 300 students this year. "This is the first time we are offering this service," Mr Nair explains.

"So our expectations are quite modest. However, we are aiming to touch 1000 students in the coming years. Our kiosks are certainly capable of handling this number." He also adds that the fee charged by the kiosks for the coaching programme is minimal and there are some corporates stepping-in to subsidise it for the students who can't afford it.

Depending on the response to this course, Comat would consider offering educational services relevant to rural students in future. English Language and soft skills training are the kind of courses Comat thinks will make a difference to students, whose limited exposure come in the way of their employability.

Students interested in enrolling for the training can SMS "CET" to 98800 02144, 9449868144, 94480 61745, 8800 02144, or contact any of the Nemmadi centres in their taluk.