In order to prevent professional colleges from using original documents of students as a leash, the One-Man Committee that monitors admissions has recommended to the State government to have students submit them to the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) instead.
In an informal chat with Express on Monday, Srinivas Kishanrao (S K) Saidapur, Chairman of the Karnataka State Professional Colleges Admissions Monitoring Committee, said the practice of submission of original documents to colleges has paved way for misuse.
“Most of the complaints I received were on this issue. There were many cases where students were allotted other colleges or had to discontinue studies for financial reasons, but they would have submitted their documents to their colleges who would demand full course fees in exchange for the documents. The only way to stop this is when students do not have give original documents at all,” Prof Saidapur said.
He suggested that the government can formulate an arrangement where KEA can retain original documents to prevent “harmful and unpleasant” instances.
“In one case last year, a student who was allotted an engineering seat participated in an options entry round later and opted for an Ayurveda seat, which cancelled his previous allotment. The engineering college demanded that he cough up fees for all four years to get his original documents back. We somehow resolved the issue,” Prof Saidapur said.
“The KEA could charge a nominal `250 from each student for this service. The documents can be directly returned to students after the entire Common Entrance Test (CET) admission process. Colleges can be given verified photocopies by KEA. In fact, even Visvesvaraya Technological University does not insist on original documents while approving admissions,” he explained.
The panel, which received 405 complaints from students last year, had to deal with the issue of colleges refusing to return original documents to students in 255 complaints. Sources said Prof Saidapur has included this recommendation among others in his annual report to the government.
Students seeking admission to government seats have to submit SSLC marks card, II PUC marks card, study certificate (to show seven years of study in the State), income certificate (for supernumerary quota), rural study certificate (for rural quota), Kannada medium certificate (for reservation) and caste certificate (for various social groups).
Terming it a radical idea, KEA officials took no time to shoot it down. “We will need a separate warehouse. It is not practical, but we will await directions from the government,” said S N Gangadharaiah, administrative officer, KEA.
Panel Recommendations
■ COMEDK should refund fees directly to students in cases of migration/ discontinuation and not ask them to go to their respective colleges
■ Suitable compensation to colleges be defined if students quit course after a certain period of time, instead of them having to pay full course fee
■ Make arrangements to pay tuition fee and any additional fees (if permitted) in KEA itself
■ Colleges should upload ‘mandatory’ and ‘optional’ fees
■ Statutory powers to the One-Man Committee that monitors admissions to make interventions more effective