Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Gulbarga: The increase in fees fixed for the Common Entrance Test (CET) for professional courses and the partial fee concession announced by the State Government for students joining engineering courses has come in for criticism from teachers.

The North-eastern Teachers Forum has condemned the Government’s decision to increase CET fees for general merit students from Rs. 500 to Rs. 650 and from Rs. 400 to Rs. 500 for students belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Its members said the fees were much higher that the Rs. 180 and Rs. 20 fixed for the two categories respectively for the pre-university course examination. Working president of the forum M.B. Ambalagi told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the fees for CET were almost equal to that fixed for boys in government pre-university colleges. For girl students no fee is being charged. “The maximum expenditure incurred by the CET Cell in organising the two-day test would be Rs. 200 per student. Charging Rs. 650 is unacceptable,” he added.

The forum also reiterated its demand to start the process of collecting applications for CET after the PUC results were announced so that only eligible students appeared. In districts such as Gulbarga, where the pass percentage had not crossed 50 in the PUC examination, almost all students who appeared for that exam also wrote the CET by paying the required fees.

“This is a waste of money and energy for students who do not qualify for professional courses, particularly the medical stream, where a minimum pass percentage of 50 is required,” he said.

With the CET and PUC examinations to be held in quick succession this year, students’ preparations would be affected, he added. The PUC examination will be held from March 18 to 31 and the CET examination on April 28 and 29. He said the decision of the Government to extend a one-year partial fee concession to students who get up to rank 20,000 in the CET would also not help many.

The Government has decided to offer a Rs. 10,000 fee rebate, for the first year, to those joining engineering courses.
“This decision has no logic, and if the Government is really interested in helping meritorious students, it should extend the fee concession to all irrespective of rank and for the full course term of five years.”