Will the proposed national single entrance test prove beneficial to students?
The year 2013 will be marked as a significant one in the
country’s higher education scenario with a landmark change kicking in —
the national common entrance examination. Instead of multiple
examinations for admissions to different colleges by way of each State
conducting one for government seats, and in some States private
associations conducting one for management seats, in addition to large
private universities conducting their own entrance tests, the entire
country will have a single exam.
The new system,
aimed at streamlining the admission process to professional courses in
the country, will begin with the medical stream. Amidst stiff opposition
from various quarters, especially private institutions, to the National
Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), the process for the common test
for postgraduate (PG) medical admissions has already begun.
The
NEET-PG for admissions to PG medical seats will be conducted over 10
days between November 23 and December 6 at 47 test centres across 33
cities. This will be seen as a precursor to the undergraduate (UG) NEET
which is scheduled to debut next year following a Supreme Court
directive.
Loopholes
However, as expected out
of any new model, the NEET-PG is already faced with a volley of
complaints. First, the overwhelming number of registrations rattled the
testing service provider, Prometric. As many as 38,000 registrations
were recorded on the first day for the new qualifying-cum-entrance
examination conducted by the National Board of Examination). The
overwhelming response prompted Prometric to release additional seats in
all locations on the first day of registration.
Another
glaring loophole popped up right on the first day. The common exam,
expected to reduce inconvenience for students who had to travel from one
city to another to write multiple exams, had not eliminated the
problem. Due to the large number of registrations, entries for exam
centres were filled up soon after the registration window opened.
For
example, a PG medical seat aspirant in Bangalore complained of all exam
centres in the city being full on Day-1 itself. He got allotted a
centre in distant New Delhi. “I have to spend Rs. 10,000 on the flight
ticket now,” he rued. Similar cases were reported from across the
country.
To add to the confusion, candidates are
allowed to register only once and there will be no option to change the
test location, date or time after they have completed their online
registration process. Candidates have time till November 12 to complete
their registration.
NEET-UG
Observers are
watching carefully how the NEET-PG pans out as it will be a small sample
of how the NEET-UG will be conducted next year. The latter is expected
to be a bigger challenge due to the huge number of undergraduate
applicants. Moreover, States like Karnataka have made certain requests
to the Council of Boards of School Education in India (COBSE), New
Delhi, among which are adhering to the difficulty level in portions
followed for the Karnataka Common Entrance Test (K-CET) and making the
exam bilingual (in English and Kannada to cater to the rural students as
well).
Engineering to wait?
Meanwhile, the
common exam for engineering courses — the Indian Science Engineering
Eligibility Test (ISEET) — may have to wait. Karnataka, for one, has
decided to stick to K-CET till 2015 for engineering admissions.
Resources : http://www.thehindu.com/education/issues/ushering-in-neet/article3999148.ece
