Eamcet on May 8

The Andhra Pradesh state Government has announced dates of various common entrance tests for admission into professional courses for the year 2008.

Chairman of APSCHE K.C. Reddy on said on December 27 that the EAMCET-2008 would be held on May 8 while ECET (FDH) - 2008 would be held on May 1. He said that ICET-2008 under OU would be held on May 11 and LAWCET-2008 would be conducted on May 31. The Ed-CET examination under AU would be held on June 8.

The pattern of the question papers is not likely to change for all the common entrance tests except for ED-CET. However, final decision would be taken only after meeting of the CET committee, Mr. Reddy said.

Order for Eamcet 2009

The EAMCET 2009 would be different from the previous once because the state government has decided to give 25 per cent weightage to marks obtained in the Intermediate (MPC and BPC streams) group subjects for admission to engineering, medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, medical and dental courses.

The remaining 75 per cent weightage will be given to marks secured by the students in Eamcet, the common entrance test for admission to professional courses.

According to a Government order the new set-up will be implemented from the year 2009. Its impact, however, would be felt from the ongoing academic year 2007-2008 as students who are now doing their Intermediate first year will appear for Eamcet in
2009.

The Principal Secretary of Higher Education Mr Asutosh Mishra, told reporters on November 26 that the decision was taken to make students realise the importance of basic Intermediate syllabus.

Explaining the government decision, Mr Mishra said that students were paying more attention to preparation for entrance examinations and were neglecting the basic conceptual knowledge desired at the Intermediate level.

The Secretary of the Board of Intermediate Education, Mr R.P. Sisodia has, in a statement, asked all principals, students and parents to make note of the government’s decision.

However, the Government order (GOMs No 165) has came in for severe criticism from noted academician and MLC Chukka Ramaiah who argued that such a move would further widen the gulf between rural and urban students. While the Government junior
colleges in rural and semi-urban areas still lacked in infrastructure, the problem of vacancy of lecturers was another big problem.

However, the corporate colleges had an edge over them. The evaluation by the Board of Intermediate was also not up to the mark and several lapses had also been noticed by the Government. Unless there is a clear conduct of exams, the latest move would
further damage the interests of rural students, Mr. Ramaiah said.

It may be recalled that the neighbouring Tamil Nadu has already abandoned the common admission test for admission to professional colleges in the state and admission to private and government professional colleges in Tamil Nadu is being done
on the basis of the state education board results.