Poll duties for senior staff in Karnataka throw CET 2011 awry

The zilla and taluk panchayat elections, scheduled for December 26 and 31, have thrown out of gear preparations for the Common Entrance Test (CET) 2011 for admission to professional colleges in the state.

A preliminary meeting was held by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) with the managements of private professional colleges in the state on December 2, 2010. Nothing has happened since, with regard to conducting the CET 2011. As things stand, officials involved with the conduct of the CET have also been deputed on election-related work. So no work is likely to happen till at least December 31.

While the executive director of the KEA is on leave for 10 days, the commissioner, department of public instructions, who also holds charge of the KEA and the pre-university examinations, is on election duty. Work of the KEA cannot continue when senior officials are not available. There are other issues too that have caused a delay in preparations for CET 2011.

The last meeting of the KEA board had decided that candidates taking the CET 2011 should be allowed to access applications online. However, to facilitate such a process, the KEA would need to set up a separate website. “It takes at least two months to prepare a website,” said a source from a company which had expressed interest in designing the website for the KEA.

KEA officials have decided to call a tender for designing the new website. “In the board meeting, a decision was taken to give over the work of designing the KEA website to us. Now, the KEA says it will go in for a tender process. We are confused now about whether it makes sense to start work,” said an official from the firm that was at the verge of beginning work on the KEA’s new website.

What is more, the state higher education department needs to get the approval of the Supreme Court for CET 2010 consensual agreement, according to which fee structure and seat sharing arrangements are worked out with private colleges. The state government had recently filed an appeal before the Supreme Court to get the approval, but the Supreme Court has since asked for more documents.

“The Supreme Court is on winter vacation. It will re-open only by the first week of January. We can expect the approval to come through only by the end of January,” said a principal of a private college.