JOIN USChaos reigns supreme at KEA counselling
As many as 3,000 students and their parents had to wait for four hours at the Karnataka Examination Authority for the first round of counselling for MBA/MCA seats here on Tuesday.
The KEA, late Monday night, posted the counselling notice on its website informing that the session would begin at 8 am.
The students were asked to come along with a demand draft for the fee to secure admission to MBA/MCA courses under the government quota. The short notice for the counselling, however, left the students and parents fuming.
“I have come from Tumkur to secure admission for my daughter to study MBA. We were under the impression that fees needed to be paid directly to the colleges and the late night notice came as a rude shock. Now I am running around to get a demand draft,” Ranganath, a parent, said.
Hundreds of students were found frantically running around to get three photographs of theirs, to be submitted along with admission forms.
“We were never told about photographs. Only after we came here the officials told us to get photographs. Why can’t the KEA inform parents and students early,?” said Raghunath, a lecturer at Maharani Ammanni College.
He said the counselling for his daughter was scheduled at 11.30 am and she was stuck inside even at 1 pm.
With no public urinals and a packed waiting area, parents and students found the situation extremely difficult to cope with.
According to KEA officials, the delay occurred primarily due to a wrong log into the system by the lower rung officials.
“We also had trouble in shifting the local area network (LAN) from inside the offices to the large open space within the KEA premises to conduct the counselling,” said another official.
Refuting the charges of delayed notice to come with a demand draft, the KEA said the fee structure was notified a week ago and that a section of students and parents responsible for the panic.
Officials were also found complaining about the lack of staff leading to delayed counselling session.
“But we will complete the counselling. There are possibilities of a spillover to Wednesday and we are hopeful of managing it,” the official said.