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| Friday, July 04, 2008
Decision on NITs dims chances of State students
AIEEE ranks secured by Tamil Nadu students have always
been low
Tiruchi: Last month’s decision of the Union Ministry of
Human Resource Development to fill 50 per cent of the seats
in the National Institutes of Technology under the Other States
Quota on the basis of the all-India ranking in the All India
Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) in place of the State-wise
ranking has eliminated scope for Tamil Nadu students to get
admission to the other NITs.
The AIEEE ranks secured by Tamil Nadu students have always been
low, as in the case of students of many other States. With the
AIEEE counselling under way, parents and students see arbitrariness
in the Ministry’s assurance to create a quota for students
of States and Union Territories where there is no NIT. The off-campus
online counselling was conducted from June 23 to 29, and the
on-campus online counselling will begin on July 4. The decision,
teachers of the NIT-Tiruchi reckon, will only benefit a few
States where organised coaching is a multi-crore business.
They point out that the performance in the board examinations
of many AIEEE high-rankers from such States are far below that
of students from States like Tamil Nadu.
What intrigues parents the most is that the Ministry has reneged
on the promise on admission procedure when the Regional Engineering
Colleges were upgraded as National Institutes of Technology.
Rajasekaran, a parent, feels that at one stroke, the Ministry
has deprived Tamil Nadu of the seats it is entitled to as per
the Ministry’s assurance.
Apprehending that the admission procedure could be altered in
future, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal delayed agreeing to the plan.
But they got on board only after the Centre made the assurance.
In a letter to the Regional Engineering Colleges in 2002, the
Ministry made it clear that the ratio of intake of students
would remain the same (50 per cent from the State concerned
and 50 per cent nationwide with nominations from other States).
This procedure, which had been in vogue for more than four decades,
gave the student body of the NITs a national character. Indeed,
this was the aim with which the Regional Engineering Colleges
were started by the Centre and the States in the early 1960s,
the parents point out. They want the government to swing into
action to safeguard the interests of the State.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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