CEE: Stepping stone or stumbling block?

While the State administration is geared up to conduct the examination, only yesterday, the Chief Minister Manohar Joshi announced at Nashik that steps would be taken to avoid the examination. A day long meeting was held in Mumbai to resolve the issue and despite repeated attempts, T C Benjamin, Secretary, Medical Education and Dr V L Deshpande, Director, Medical Education and Research were unavailable for comment.

Parents however are taking no chances. quot;What do we do. It is so frustrating when our child has slogged for the entire year, secured an excellent total of 94 in the PCB group to be thrust with this examination. Fine, this CEE is good, but can8217;t the government inform us at least six months in advance. How can one judge at the stroke of his pen change the lives of so many people,quot; an anguished parent M S Kulkarni lashed out.

M B Chaskar from Ambegaon rued the highly priced form. quot;My daughter Vaishali secured 84 percent, and yes, this examination is more than welcome, but will it be foolproof?quot; he questions. Debajyoti Chatterjee, a student of St. Vincent8217;s who secured 80.17 percent in the PCB group feels students appearing the CBSE and ISC examinations would definitely stand to gain.

These board examinations are very strict as against the HSC ones and normally one does not obtain a very high percentage, he quipped.quot;At least the rote system will go off,quot; says Sandesh Thampi of Loyola school who secured a grand total of 94 in the PCB group and has mixed feelings about the CEE. quot;I was for it before the HSC results were declared, but now that I8217;ve got such good marks8230; well let8217;s see,quot; he grins. However parent Lalita Apte whose son Sachin scored 87 percent in the PCB group feels they have been given a second chance.

quot;If the student has decided that MBBS is his/her first preference, one more month of studying does not really matter. There should be a separate examination for professional courses, in fact there should be one for engineering as well,quot; Apte stressed. Students Manisha Darade, Bhumi Shah, Manish Taha and parents T Balasubramaniam, D D Pundalik and Dr R S Verma all welcomed the decision to conduct the CEE, only they should have been informed about it much earlier. quot;It is a second chance and merit should be rewarded,quot; is what they feel.

A few parents of students who appeared for the CBSE examination however could not collect the forms as they did not have the marksheets. P S Sonu from Dehu Road rued that with CBSE results being declared only yesterday it would take at least three to four days before obtaining the marksheet. He lamented that the forms were not given simply because they did not have the CBSE marksheet.

Dr B R Zambre, Head, Department of Anatomy, BJMC said that five counters had been opened with two for distributing forms for reserved category candidates. There are nearly 3,000 seats for MBBS courses and 820 seats for BDS courses in three regions of Marathwada, Vidarbha and Rest of Maharashtra region. The last date for submission of forms is June 20 while the provisional regional eligible candidate list will be displayed on June 25.

The regional final eligibility list will be displayed on June 29 while the state eligibility list will be displayed on July 2. The examination will be conducted on July 12 after which the answer books will be assessed on July 13 and 14. The State merit list will be displayed on July 17 after which the admission process will commence at the Directorate of Medical Education and Research office on July 27.