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AHMEDABAD: A handful of
students who did not take the Gujarat Common Entrance Test
(GujCET) in March this year, hoping they would get admission
to engineering colleges on the basis of HSC marks are in a
fix.
This, after Gujarat High Court
ordered that GujCET scores should be considered along with
HSC marks for admis-sion to profes-sional courses. A number
of students are now anxiously awaiting a Supreme Court
hearing on Friday.
The legal wrangle involves the
state government and the Association of Management of
Gujarat Unaided Engineering College and Institutions. Ishit
Sharma, a former student of Gujarat Refinery School in
Vadodara, did not take GujCET, thinking it was not
compulsory.
He heaved a sigh of relief
when he came across the Association's advertisement stating
that GujCET scores were not needed. "I filled up their form,
but got a shock when they lost in court," he says.
Not very optimistic about the
Supreme Court hearing, Sharma has already planned to go to
Bangalore to study engineering. For Krishna Upadhyay, the
son of a farmer from Panchmahals, moving out of Gujarat is
"unaffordable".
Upadhyay filled up the
Association form in anticipation of getting into one of the
20 colleges, then part of the Association. Says this former
student of JB Shah School in Modasa, "I may have to opt for
BSc as I cannot afford to go outside Gujarat.
My father had just about
managed to get a loan for an SFI seat here," he rues.
Similarly,Vadodara's Aditya Tripathi of Refinery School too
is eagerly waiting for the SC order. Students also admit
that problems arose due to their ignorance about CET.
If equipped with proper
information, students could have opted for pure science
courses or shifted out of the state, believes JR Dave,
president of the Ahmedabad-based National Association of
Parents of Students.
Of the 16,000 applications
received by the Association so far, less than one per cent
had not taken GujCET. "But there could be more who have
simply moved out of Gujarat," said RC Desai, general
secretary of the Association.
The exact number of science
students, who did not take GujCET was not available with the
Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board.
However, HN Hingu, chairperson of GSHEB, said that the
percentage was low.
"I am surprised that students
were ignorant about the test. We had advertised in leading
publications and issued circulars to schools across the
state."
News Source:
Times of India.
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