Single entrance test for AICTE engineering and management institutes

New Delhi: Single entrance test for admissions to all engineering institutes under All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and a common examination for all business schools is likely to be introduced following the recommendation of government-appointed panel.

The panel has recommended setting up of a National Testing Service to conduct the exam and proposed that it be an independent body seeking the support of CBSE or outsourcing the work to other agencies.

Presently, over 11,000 institutes, both engineering and management, come under the purview of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

According to TOI "There shall be a single National Testing Service which shall conduct a Joint Entrance Examination for engineering courses and a Common Admission Test for management courses. The results of the exam shall be used by all institutions, whether run by universities, deemed universities, state government-run universities, private universities etc."

"Besides, the seats which are left vacant after the completion of counselling sessions shall not be treated as a management quota, but should have to be used to accommodate students on the waiting lists of these examinations," says the report of the AICTE review committee said.

The proposal to have a single national entrance test is made to relieve student from taking plethora of entrance tests for entry to an institution. With AICTE in place the single entrance exam will be held for engineering ( JEE Main for engineering) and Management (CMAT for management).

In its report, the committee has also suggested that AICTE should be transformed into an "apex constitutional authority" and emphasized on doing away with the affiliation system within a decade.

"It should be converted into an apex constitutional authority to promote orderly, integrated and coordinated development of technical education technical education should be a fundamental right," the report said.

The recommendations come two years after the HRD ministry, then headed by Kapil Sibal. The ministry had proposed to have a similar national testing agency to conduct various kinds of national level entrance examinations and a task force was also constituted to take the proposal forward.

The recommendations have been posted on the official website to seek the views of stakeholders.