Revive CET for engineering

Updated on: Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The results of the last semester examination conducted by self- financing engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University of Technology (AUT), Chennai, have been anything but encouraging.

A mere 26 per cent of the students passed, causing concern among academicians who feel it’s time to revive the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to engineering colleges across the state and make sure students of quality join the engineering stream.

Former vice-chancellor of Anna University, Prof A. Kalanidhi says that since the qualifying percentage for admission to engineering colleges was lowered from 60 to 45, there has been a steady fall in the quality of students gaining entry to them.

While he acknowledges that the government lowered the bar for admission only because thousands of seats in self-financing engineering colleges across the state had no takers, he thinks the time has come to raise it again to 60 per cent and revive the Common Entrance Test.

“Even today the government conducts a CET for post graduate courses (M.E. and M.Tech), so why cannot it do the same for the under graduate?” he asks.

The long term solution, in his view, is to review school education where students are usually spoon fed and don't use their analytical abilities, to ensure that more students of quality enter professional colleges.

"We also don't have good quality teachers who can motivate students to secure higher grades," he regrets.

A senior faculty admits that several students in tier-2 and tier-3 engineering colleges are not very bright.

"Most of these students have secured marks ranging from 35 to 50 per cent, so how can you expect them to pass an engineering examination?" he asks.

AUT vice-chancellor, Prof. C. Thangaraj, however, blames frequent faculty migration for the poor performance of the engineering colleges, suggesting that they need to improve their service conditions and working environment to retain their teachers.

"Frequent movement of faculty disturbs the academic process and results in poor performance of students,” he says.

Revive CET for engineering

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