Admissions to all colleges under the Karnataka Private Post Graduate Colleges’ Association (KPPGCA) will be done according to the Karnataka Management Admissions Test (KMAT), instead of the Common Management Admission Test (CMAT), Association secretary Dr B Prakash said on Monday.
The move comes in the light of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) being declared only an ‘advisory and recommendatory body’ as per the Supreme Court order in April this year.
The Court order further states that colleges affiliated to universities do not need permission of the AICTE to start MBA and MCA courses.
There are 169 institutions affiliated to various universities in Karnataka that are a part of the KPPGCA and nearly 12,000 students have been taking the examination for the past eight years.
“The Supreme Court judgement has made it extremely clear that any directive of the AICTE has no standing. Based on this, we filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court, contending that CMAT, too, was therefore not valid. Two days ago, we got an order to go ahead with KMAT,” said Prakash.
The lack of popularity of CMAT among management course aspirants was also cited as reason for this move. “There was low turnout for CMAT owing to its complex online mode of examination. It would be impossible to fill nearly the 10,000-odd management seats in various institutions with such less number of candidates,” said Prakash.
