ComedK's entrance exam to go national

It plans to rope in 50 varsities by next yr, 50 in 5 yrs for joint exam

The Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (ComedK) plans to bring together as many as 20 universities in the country by next year and 50 universities in another five years in its aim to make its annual entrance test for undergraduate and postgraduate medical, dental and engineering courses a national-level test.

It will be on the lines of the Graduate Records Examination (GRE). This is part of its long-term plan in collaboration with Era Foundation, a recently launched not-for-profit company that conducts Uni-GAUGE, an all-India entrance test for admission to UG and PG medical and dental courses. Institutions like M S Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences, Reva University and Vellore’s VIT University are part of Era Foundation.

The first of this single entrance exam will be the computer based and joint ComedK PGET (postgraduate entrance test) - Uni-GAUGE’s PGMD (postgraduate medical dental entrance test) - PGET-PGMD - next January.   

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Dr S Kumar, executive secretary, ComedK, and academic head, test director, Era Foundation, pointed out that presently 12 universities are part of Era Foundation, while a number of other institutions have already shown an intention to join it. Under ComedK, there are 16 medical colleges, 18 dental colleges and some top engineering colleges of the State, he added.

“By next year’s undergraduate entrance exam, we will have at least 20 universities with us. In the next five years, our aim is to have at least 50 universities under one exam platform. We are presently in talks with a institution in Mumbai and another in Jaipur. Hopefully, they will join us soon,” he said.  
   
Kumar said, “We are trying to convince a number of universities on conducting one exam on the lines of GRE. Precious time of universities can be saved in conducting numerous exams. For the students, a lot of time will be saved in travelling to Karnataka for the test, finding lodging and other things.”

Asked about the response that the test would receive from students, Dr Kumar shared figures of the number of candidates who have registered for PGET-PGMD.

 Registrations opened on Tuesday. “Since Tuesday, more than 3,000 candidates have registered. Out of these, 2,000 have submitted their forms and have payed the fees. Of this 2,000, more than half have applied for both the exams,” he said.