COIMBATORE: Fifteen years after Tamil Nadu abolished the common entrance exam for admission into professional courses, Anna University former Vice-Chancellor E Balagurusamy has now advocated for conducting entrance exams for engineering admission, saying it is an urgent need to improve the quality of engineers.
A robust admission system with a minimum level of marks in the entrance exam, reorienting the school education system, revamping the examination system, and improving the quality of government schools are the steps way forward to improve the fast-deteriorating quality of engineering education in the state and state the life of lakhs of future engineers, he said in his letter to the Chief Minister MK Stalin.
He also urged the CM to consider the importance of the entrance exam in its entirety and do the needful to improve the quality of engineering education as well as the plight of future engineers of the state.
Removing CET has not in any way corrected the social, economic and educational bias in favour of the rich and urban students as they continue to get access to quality private ‘coaching’ schools, he opined.
“From the abolition of the CET, the performance of engineering colleges has been coming down every year due to the poor standard of students entering the colleges. Consider the result of November 2018
semester exam of 482 Anna University affiliated colleges, around 75 colleges got single-digit pass percentage, more than 50 percent colleges secured less than 25 percent pass, more than 85 percent
colleges got less than 50 percent pass, less than 12 percent colleges got more than 50 percent pass and six colleges got zero pass,” he pointed out.
We will do more harm to their future by admitting poor students who cannot successfully complete the program than by not admitting them, Balagurusamy said.
To main goals of entrance exams are, to judge a student’s knowledge and intelligence levels required for the course and to assess whether the student possesses the necessary ‘aptitude’ to succeed in the
course, he said, adding that four important reasons for the poor quality of our engineering graduate are, low standard of students admitted, poor quality of colleges, unscrupulous college managements, absence of proper quality control and monitoring mechanisms.
“While it is important to expand higher education to enhance equity and access among aspiring youth, it is equally important to maintain the quality of higher education, a key factor for employability. Expansion should not be at the cost of quality,” he added.
In 2006, Tamil Nadu government cancelled the entrance examinations for professional courses, based on the recommendations of the expert committee headed by Anna University former VC M Ananthakrishnan.