Single Entrance Test for Engineering and Architecture Courses from 2018: HRD Ministry
HRD ministry has issued directions of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to issue necessary regulations under the AICTE Act for introducing single entrance exam.
Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development has confirmed that there would be a single national level entrance exam from 2018 for the admission to B.Tech and B.Arch courses. For this purpose, HRD ministry has issued directions to All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to issue necessary regulations under the AICTE Act for introducing single entrance exam.
The ministry also asked AICTE to ensure the testing process is standardised as per the linguistic diversity of the country. The single entrance exam will be conducted twice in a year. After making NEET mandatory for medical and dental courses, the government wants to do away with the multiple exams for the admission to UG engineering and architecture courses. Therefore, the government wants to implement single entrance examination on lines of NEET.
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One of the officials associated with HRD Ministry revealed that the government wants to bring more transparency in the admission process and regulate heavy capitation fee levied on students. Currently, most of the states conduct state-level engineering entrance examination.
According to sources, Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains will be the only entrance exam for the admission to engineering courses. However, there is no clarity which agency will conduct the entrance examination. It might be either CBSE or National Testing Service (NTS).
As of now, AICTE has drafted National Entrance Examination for B.Tech programmes 2017 and the proposal will be brought into consideration at the next meeting. However, JEE (Advanced) will be the criterion for the admission to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
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One of the officials indicated that the government would organise a national-level web based counselling and the all the states will be invited to join the process. Various engineering colleges will be able to prescribe their admission criterion during the counselling process apart from JEE (Mains) score. AICTE will finalise the modalities after holding consultations with various state governments.