Central universities may hold common entrance test

VCs of 40 varsities have agreed to the proposed move

Taking a cue from the centrally-funded technical institutions like the IITs, a majority of the central universities are now contemplating to hold a common entrance test for admissions to under-graduate and post-graduate programmes from next academic year.

A proposal, which aims at relieving students from the burden of taking multiple entrance tests, has got the green signal from vice chancellors of 40 of 43 central universities.

While modalities of the proposed test are yet to be finalised, vice-chancellors agreed to give 40 per cent weightage to class XII board marks for admissions to the under graduate programs under the new admission format.

“For admissions to postgraduate courses as well, they agreed to give 40 per cent weightage to marks secured by the students in their respective qualifying examination,” sources in the Human Resource Development Ministry told Deccan Herald.

“Universities like the Aligarh Muslim University and the Jamia Millia Islamia may be exempted from adopting the new format because of their special historical character,” sources added.

The proposed test will be conducted in two parts, with questions on general aptitude and the subject that student wants to pursue. The questions in the aptitude test may be uniform for all the candidates.

At present, most of the central universities conduct their own entrance tests for undergraduate and post graduate courses, except the central universities of Tamil Nadu, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Kerala, Jharkhand, Bihar and Jammu. “Under a mutual agreement, these universities have been successfully holding a common entrance test for admission for the last three years,” sources said.

A proposal to hold a common entrance test for admission to central universities was made about two years ago. Favouring the idea, a committee comprising the vice-chancellors of the central universities, headed by the erstwhile VC of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, B B Bhattacharya, had said in its final report that a common entrance test was needed, but each institution should have the autonomy to choose how to admit students.

It had also suggested that the common entrance test should be used more as an eligibility test, like the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by the University Grants Commission (UGC).