To choose between the national entrance for ISEET or the state entrance for EAMCET has been a tough call for students likely to appear for the competitive examinations for engineering to be conducted in 2013.
Though most of the students have been enrolled into ‘ISSET coaching’ targeted at the proposed national-level examination of Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test at the corporate colleges, the announcement for EAMCET 2013 has left the students in a quandary. “We are expected to make it to the top 20 percentile of students appearing for intermediate examinations to make it to the advanced level paper for IITs. Apart from this, there is EAMCET and the syllabus is quite different for both the examinations. A typical day is packed with solving too many question papers with little time to study the basics,” said N. Supraja, student of intermediate final year at a corporate college.
“Instead of decreasing the stress levels of the students by combining 150 entrance examinations into one, there is an increased burden on the students to prepare separately for admissions to NIT and IIITs, IITs and the state entrance. The students are expected to score a minimum of 92 per cent marks in intermediate to be eligible for writing the advanced paper of ISEET for admission to IITS. The premise is flawed as AP has more seats for engineering than the number of students attempting the examination. If the ISEET is brought into effect, not even 50,000 students will be able to qualify for the main exam,” said P. Madhusudhan Reddy, general secretary of the Government Junior Lecturers Association (GJLA).
The issue of reservation for SC/ST candidates and amendments in state laws will have to be addressed before the introduction of ISEET, he added. “In a discussion with the minister of state for human resource development D. Purandeswari, it was assured that the move was to unify the examination for NIT, IIIT and IITs. The state government could choose not to adopt the system. Implementation of the examination will also cause a major setback to around 70 per cent of the students from AP who appear for EAMCET in Telugu medium,” said Madhusudhan Reddy.
“Since we still have not received any intimation from the AICTE, the notification for EAMCET 2013 will likely be announced in due course of time,” said Dr. N.V Ramana Rao, convener of EAMCET. The notification for the examination are usually issued by end of January, whereas, the date for the main examination for ISEET has already been fixed as April 7, 2013.
