The Human Resource Development Ministry is all set to go ahead with its plan to conduct a common engineering entrance examination from 2013, but the first nation-wide test may only cover technical institutions funded by the Centre.

Meanwhile, the states will also be persuaded to accept the proposal to conduct a single entrance test for admission to engineering colleges under their jurisdiction.

“Ministry will go ahead with its plan to conduct a common entrance test in 2013 for admissions to science and engineering institutions funded by the Central government, if not for all the technical institutions functioning across the country,” sources in the HRD Ministry told Deccan Herald.

This means that the entrance test, to be conducted next year, will only cover 15 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), 30 National Institutes of Technology (NITs), four Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), five Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and few deemed universities which come under the purview of the HRD Ministry.

According to recommendations of the Ramasami committee, the single entrance, that can would be called as Indian Science-Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET) 2013, will be conducted in two parts—main and advance—in April or May next year.
As per the proposal, examinations will be of three hour duration each and will be held on one single day, sources said.

For admission, a candidate must score above 40 per cent in Class-XII board examination. However, weightage accorded to the performance in Class-XII can go up to 100 per cent. “The combined weightage for the Main and the Advance paper under ISEET shall not, in any case, exceed 60 per cent,” sources said.

It is for the individual educational institutions or the state government to decide on the weightage to be accorded to the scores in Class-XII, main and advance examination, they added.

The proposal

As per the proposal, it would be up to each institution or groups of institutions or state agencies to conduct counselling and admission.

At present, there are around 15 lakh engineering colleges across the country and over 150 entrance tests are conducted for admission to these institutes. “Ministry wants to bring change in the current system in order to give relief to students of multiple tests by introducing a common entrance test for all these technical institutions. But, this requires the states’ consent to the proposal for its implementation all over the country,” sources said.

A meeting of the state education ministers on the issue is “tentatively” scheduled on February 22.

“At the meeting, the states will be urged to deliberate on the issue and take a view on the implementation of the recommendations of the Ramasami Committee,” sources added.