Allotmnet delay: Students move to other states

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The delay in the commencement of allotment process for engineering course admissions has resulted in large number of students in the entrance ranklist moving to other states for studies.Statistics show that over 28 per cent of students who got qualified in the entrance examination have not submitted their options for the online allotment process.Of the 56,336 students included in the rank list, only 40,062 students have submitted their options. Sources said that normally, only very few students in the rank list stay away from the allotment process. Many attribute the high percentage of students staying away from the allotment process to the inordinate delay in the allotment process. Another reason cited is the steep hike in the fees following the agreement reached between self-financing engineering colleges and the government.Although the results were out on May 24, the first allotment list based on the options submitted was published only on Tuesday.The allotment process had lagged following the delay in the normalisation of marks.Students of over 30 boards from India and abroad had written the entrance examination. The normalisation process became necessary following the decision to consider Plus-II marks along with the marks of entrance examination for admissions.The implementation of some of the clauses in the agreement reached between the government and self-financing engineering college managements is also a major cause for the delay.One clause in the agreement said that out of the 50 per cent seats handed over to the government, 15 per cent has been reserved for students from the community that runs the institution. To implement this, the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) has to verify the community certificate of students who are eligible for the seats.Sources said there was also a deliberate attempt to destroy the  credibility of the entrance test. The rumours spread following the minor errors in the rank list published on the NIC website were an example for this, they said. The errors occurred while incorporating the marks of Plus-II examinations with the entrance marks. Following this, some students who had failed to qualify in the entrance test  were shown as qualified onthe NIC website.The Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) told ‘Express’ that the errors were rectified later. Moreover, the correct results were available on the CEE website, he said.