Private universities have agreed to the government’s proposal to fill up seats through a uniform entrance test instead of conducting a separate entrance test for each private university to fill up 40% of private quota seats in professional courses, including engineering.
The decision was taken at the meeting held with private universities headed by M.C. Sudhakar, Minister of Higher Education, on Thursday, September 19.
Private universities will henceforth consider candidates who qualify in CET, JEE — conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and COMEDK for entry into professional courses from the academic year of 2025-26.
Speaking at a press conference at the Higher Education Council, Mr. Sudhakar said, “There are 32 private universities in Karnataka and 17 universities offering various professional courses. Each university conducts a separate entrance test for filling up its respective quota seats. Due to this, students have to write many exams in addition to being financially burdened. To avoid this, some official agencies were advised to fill up their share of seats. Otherwise, all the universities were told to form a separate consortium to conduct the examination and fill up the seats.”
The Minister also mentioned that in the coming days, the government will also consider having a common entrance test for admissions to general degree courses at private universities. “As there is no entrance test for admissions to general degree courses at the colleges and universities run by the government, we were unable to take any decision on it,” Dr. Sudhakar explained.
Fee fixation committee
The high fees charged by private universities was also discussed in the meeting and universities have been directed to fix the fees by constituting a fee fixation committee headed by a retired judge. “It is there in the act of every private university and we have directed them that they must fix the fees only through the committees,” the Minister said.
The government fixes fees for the 40% government quota seats in private colleges every year.
Going a step ahead to bring uniformity among private universities, the government is contemplating forming a common Act for private universities and bringing them all under a single umbrella. Currently, each university has its own Act.
SOP for exams
The State government has also decided to constitute a committee to set Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for all higher education institutions to handle students caught copying during the examination. This came after the report on the student suicide reported at PES University Bengaluru by Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor Jayakara S.M. was placed and discussed in the meeting.
“The committee will consist of psychologists and Vice-Chancellors. The SOP will apply to all higher education institutions, including private and deemed-to-be. Our committee will concentrate on exam pressure and malpractice related issues while framing the SOP,” he added.
UVCE seats filled through JEE
The State government is contemplating considering Karnataka domicile students while giving admissions at University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) under 25% seats to be filled through JEE.
“There is a provision in the UVCE act to fill 25% seats through JEE. We are planning to implement that to improve the quality by taking quality students and also to provide 10% to Karnataka domicile students in that 25%,” he explained. He mentioned that not all the students who cleared JEE will get seats at IITs.
Sharing the government’s plans to develop UVCE in an IIT model, the Minister shared that the process to handover 50 acres of land identified at the Jnana Bharati campus is on and the government has earmarked ₹500 crore and already released ₹100 crore in the first phase.
Curtailing Governor’s power
To a question on curtailing the powers of the Governor in the selection of chancellors of universities, he replied that the State government has no such intention. “The Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University is a separate university, which does not come under the Collegiate Education Department. I was absent from the cabinet decision meeting to curtail the governor’s powers in the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor of that university,” he said.
Published - September 19, 2024 10:11 pm IST
