CET plan upsets engg aspirants among diploma holders

Students pursuing diploma courses across the State are in a spot with regard to the DCET, the Common Entrance Test conducted by the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) for lateral entry into engineering courses.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which prescribes guidelines for technical education, does not mandate CET.

However, the State government insists on the CET for eligibility to engineering and students find this an unnecessary process.

As per the AICTE Approval Process Handbook 2012-13, students who have passed the diploma exam in an AICTE-approved institution with 45 per cent marks (40 per cent in case of candidates belonging to the reserved category) are eligible for admissions to the second year engineering of an appropriate branch. It also mentions that all candidates, except those seeking lateral entry to engineering and technology and lateral entry to programmes other than engineering and technology, have to appear for an entrance test.

Karnataka, in addition to the prescribed 45 per cent, makes the CET compulsory. A circular has already been issued to all polytechnic college principals, for the DCET this year, asking them to make a list of students wishing to pursue engineering. All these students will be required to take DCET.

‘This CET is absurd’
The State government’s reason behind conducting the entrance test is that a number of autonomous polytechnic colleges in the State are not stringent with valuation of answerscripts. Hence, students from government and aided polytechnic colleges did not stand an equal opportunity. Presently, there are 41 aided, 133 unaided private and one autonomous polytechnic college in Karnataka.

“The AICTE does not mandate CET. However, the decision was taken to make the process fair for all students concerned,” said Department of Technical Education (DTE) director H U Talawar. He said a decision on whether or not to conduct the entrance test henceforth was vested with the Higher Education Minister and the Principal Secretary. The schedule for the test is decided by the KEA, he said.

However, students and parents alike feel DCET at this level is absurd. “Diploma students will be eligible only for engineering and that too, only in the related streams of their chosen subjects at the diploma level.

So, unlike the CET after PUC that is held to test students’ aptitude in different streams, where is the need for such an entrance test here? The streams have already been decided,” a polytechnic college lecturer said. Further, this is unfair to students from rural areas who do not have access to fancy coaching classes, he added.

Many allege that the decision favours the coaching classes mafia, as students are forced to take up coaching classes to clear the CET. One of the students in a city college said the syllabus for the DCET is entirely different from the regular course syllabus. Colleges too do not train students in this direction and only those who go to coaching classes can hope to clear the exam.

A writ appeal against the CET by a group of students from Mangalore is pending before the High Court. The students’ writ petition was dismissed by the High Court in October 2012, upholding the government’s decision to conduct DCET. The KEA plans to hold the exam by June 15. However, the forms have not been despatched yet.
DH News Service