‘Too traumatic,’ Amma scraps medical, engg entrance exam

With the state Assembly election barely a year away, Jayalalithaa’s sudden decision is being seen as yet another populist measure in the last year of her rule.

In a statement here, she said her government was ‘‘always responsive to the felt needs of the people.’’ She took this ‘‘landmark decision to provide students and parents a simple and transparent system, which will make education meaningful and a platform for real growth and development.’’

The policy has also nullified the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE 2005) in which over 1.64 lakh candidates had appeared. However, candidates who had already applied for counselling would automatically be treated as applicants under the new system. New applicants could also file their applications and a revised time schedule for this would be announced separately. This would ensure that the counselling process would commence as planned in early July.

The decision comes in the wake of demands by both the DMK and PMK, both constituents of the Congress-led UPA, for scrapping the entrance examination system in vogue since the 1984-85 academic year.

While the DMK executive last week passed a resolution protesting entrance tests, the PMK had threatened an agitation against the system.

Echoing Opposition concerns, Jayalalithaa said the CEE had now become ‘‘a traumatic experience’’ for parents and children ‘‘as it appears to determine in one stroke the future of the child.’’ Also, the CEE had to be taken immediately after the Plus Two exams. In addition to the Plus Two course the student had to attend special classes conducted by various coaching institutions merely to tackle the entrance examination.

‘‘This results in the students having to carry an impossible load leading to great anguish and frustration. Most parents and children resent this feeling of oppression and mental agony and crave for a better system.’’

Jayalalithaa said the entrance examination system had also ‘‘encouraged a ‘‘pernicious’’ system of ‘‘teaching shops’’ oriented towards students from urban areas only to get high marks in the entrance tests. ‘‘The government’s attempt to set apart a quota for rural area students had not been upheld by the High Court,’’ she said.

With the large proliferation of engineering colleges, there are not enough students for many colleges. This is being seen as one of the reasons for the state government’s decision to scrap entrance tests. Also, with the Supreme Court directing that a separate entrance test should be conducted for management quota admissions in private colleges two years ago, there has been much confusion in the entrance test system.