'Change in rules to cause trouble'

Hubli, June 22 : The Karnataka Government's move to pursue with the decision of Inter-University Board (IUB) to change the rules for admissions to post graduate (PG) courses in universities is all set to create yet another problem on the education front, former Mangalore University Vice Chancellor M I Savadatti has opined.

Talking to UNI, he said the formula accepted was 50 per cent of the seats for graduates of the same university, 40 per cent for students of other universities of the state and 10 per cent of the seats for students from outside the state. The formula had been arrived at based on the concept of having a mixture of motivated students from different parts of the state and the country.

''However, the implications of implementing the scheme do not seem to have been addressed,'' Dr Savadatti said and pointed out that the present system of admission to PG courses was 90 per cent of the seats for students of the same university and the remaining for students of other varsities. Many departments conduct entrance examinations and allot seats following the reservation system of the state government. There were also payment seats in addition to regular seats, he added.

If the switchover was to be done, two important things need to be attended to immediately--firstly how the 40 per cent would be filled from other universities and whether reservation norms would be followed and secondly, how 10 per cent from outside the state would be chosen for admission.

Spelling out the alternatives, Dr Savadatti said one of the options was that a central entrance examination could be conducted for all the universities and for all the subjects and students admitted to different universities through counselling taking into account their ranks, preferences and reservation.

Another option was that the examination results could be taken as it was and admission provided on the basis of marks, preferences and reservation. This, though simple, created a ticklish problem of equating marks of different universities. Legally also there could be problems. Therefore it was not desirable to accept this option, he added.

Dr Savadatti said in both the situations holding of counselling for students would become complex in view of every student being eligible for the subjects for his or her post graduate admission. If accepted, there would be the frightening complexities of management conducting examinations, counselling, keeping track of reservation and the time-consuming procedural problems at all stages.

He said ''With all this, for many subjects in many universities, there may not be sizeable number of students from outside the state.

The departments may not be distinguished and the students may like to be near their places due to financial and other reasons.'' He said it would be in the best interests of post graduate education, if all the problems were examined and a road map prepared so that the changeover served the desired purpose. ''Therefore, it is better to hold back the implementation till the road is clearly understood. Otherwise, it may lead to lot of confusion,'' he added.

UNI