CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government had sought the deferment of National Engineering Entrance Test scheduled to be held from 2018-19 with respect to the state till it modifies the state board syllabus. In a DO letter to Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday, Tamil Nadu higher education minister K.P.Anbalagan said, “The introduction of common entrance exam is only going to give scope for mushrooming of coaching institutions.”
“AICTE has proposed to introduce national level entrance test for admission to B.E./B.Tech. courses in technical institutions and universities from 2018-19. It will adversely affect the interest of a large number of students, especially those belonging to backward and rural areas and the students from economically weaker sections,” he said in the letter. He further said that it is imperative that the views of the state government are obtained before arriving policy decisions on such major issues having far-reaching implications.
“Rationale of an entrance exam can be understood when there are less number of seats available and more takers. However, in the context of Tamil Nadu, engineering seats are more and takers are less,” he said. He also promised that the state government will take all efforts to appropriately modify its higher secondary syllabus and impart the required training to the teachers in the new syllabus.
“This cannot be done suddenly in the ad hoc manner and will require few years in implementation. It is requested that till then the present system of taking class 12 marks for admission to B.E. and B.Tech courses needs to be continued and the conduct of entrance test may be deferred for the present in respect of TN,” he demanded. In a separate letter, he also demanded a grant of Rs 1,055 crore under RUSA scheme for implementing various programmes in the department.
