students no longer have to appear for multiple entrance examinations for B.E./B.Tech programme

Updated on: Wednesday, August 29, 2012

With the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approving a common eligibility test (CET) for B.E/B.Tech programmes in colleges across the country, students will no longer have to appear for multiple entrance examinations in different states to join these courses from the next academic year.

All they will need to do is pass the CET conducted at the all-India level by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to become eligible for admission to them.

Tamil Nadu will, however, be out of the test’s ambit as the state government had scrapped CET for its engineering colleges a couple of years ago. The state made its stance against the CET clear at the education ministers’ conference on February 22 in New Delhi.

“The percentage of rural students admitted to engineering courses in 2005 and 2006 when CET was conducted was 56.72 and 58.26 respectively.

This trend changed after abolition of CET and the percentage went up to 68.79 per cent last year,” higher education minister, P. Palaniappan told the conference.

The AICTE at its meeting on July 26 had noted that the multiple exams for entry to professional courses put tremendous pressure on students and many didn’t take their class XII board exams seriously enough as they didn’t count for admission to these colleges.

It unanimously approved conducting one CET for students across the country and giving at least 40 per cent weightage to class XII board exams for admission to engineering colleges to correct this situation.

States were, however, permitted to fix a higher weightage for class XII board exams if they so wished. The council is expected to soon come out with the necessary guidelines for the nation-wide CET.

students no longer have to appear for multiple entrance examinations for B.E./B.Tech programme

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