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Professional course aspirants, for the first time, could be appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET) based on the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) syllabus from 2014.
This is a departure for students seeking government and government-quota seats in the State from the regular State syllabus based CET. Students will still be training under the central syllabus to clear the CET, irrespective of the Supreme Court scrapping the National Eligibility-Cum-Entrance Test (NEET), which was based on the central syllabus.
Though there is no formal proposal on it yet, the shift in syllabus is only logical, a senior Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) official said, as the State government only recently completed upgrading both the I and II pre-university course (PUC) syllabi (by introducing common departmental textbooks) to bring it on a par with the central syllabi.
“When the students who are going to write the CET have studied the central syllabus, it is natural that the CET questions will also be based on what they have studied in II PU,” the official added.
This would be a significant development for thousands of students who have already enrolled themselves in expensive coaching centres offering to train them specifically for NEET-UG as the Supreme Court verdict quashing the national entrance exam for admissions to medical courses was delivered on Thursday, much after classes had begun.
Vallish Herur, Director of BASE coaching centre, said they had streamlined the training for medical entrance tests into just one after NEET was announced, as opposed to training students separately for the State CET and for other entrance tests.
“The curriculum for NEET is nearly the same as other deemed university entrances. But now, from a student’s learning perspective, there will not be much difference as CET will also be based on the CBSE syllabus,” he said, ruling out starting separate classes for CET students after the SC verdict.
Class 12 students who were hoping not to write multiple entrances from the next year once NEET becomes mandatory are also welcoming the move.
Dev Anand Galagali, a II PU student, said: “I was expecting NEET to be the only exam I will be writing next year. But yes, at least if the CET becomes central syllabus-based, the burden on training will reduce as if I study for one entrance exam, I will automatically be studying for all other entrance tests,” he said.
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