Karnataka announces online CET

In a move that will impact lakhs of students, Karnataka has decided to take the annual Common Entrance Test (CET) online instead of the existing pen-and-paper system, Higher Education Minister G T Devegowda announced here Wednesday.

The CET is a gateway for admissions to engineering, agricultural sciences, veterinary sciences, pharmacy and other disciplines in the state. As many as 1.98 lakh students took the CET in April 2018. The test is conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA).

“We have decided that every exam and recruitment conducted by the KEA will go online. This includes the CET, which will be conducted online instead of the existing pen-and-paper system,” Devegowda told a news conference. He did not say, however, if the CET will be online or just computer-based where students will have to rely on already downloaded answer sheets in a computer.

The minister has convened a meeting with KEA officials on January 19 where it will be decided if the CET should go ‘online’ from 2019 or from 2020.

“By taking the CET online, we want to avoid complaints that are prevalent in the existing system,” Devegowda said. He added that the government was ready with infrastructure when asked if the government was prepared to take the test online. “Our universities and colleges have the infrastructure. All we need to do is prepare the software. Discussions are underway to make it a transparent process,” he said.

Karnataka CET has four papers — physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology — with each paper comprising 60 one-mark questions.

At the national level, the JEE Main - for admissions to NITs, IIITs and CFTIs - has become a computer-based test. Even the NEET for medical and dental courses and the UGC National Eligibility Test have become computer-based.