Mumbai: Over 46,000 students have so far registered for the state’s first common entrance test (CET) for the Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Business Management (BBM) and Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA).
The exam will be held from May 27-29. The four courses were earlier this year designated as professional courses and brought under the ambit of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which necessitated the entrance exam.
While the state CET Cell had earlier fixed Thursday (April 18) as the last date for aspirants to sign up for the test, it has decided to extend the deadline, though the new date hasn’t been announced yet.
While the state is all set to carry out the centralised admissions to these programmes, many colleges in Mumbai and other parts of the state continue to be wary of AICTE control.
They believe that many colleges will be forced to shut the courses as they won’t be able to meet the infrastructure and faculty norms meant for professional programmes and, ultimately, running these programmes would become financially unviable.
Meanwhile, at least 467 colleges from Maharashtra, the second highest after Karnataka’s 694, have sought and been granted AICTE approval for these programmes.
Some colleges are planning to change the nomenclature of the courses as traditional BCom and BSc to avoid the ‘professional’ tag and other compliances that come with it. While BMS is a popular programme in the city, offered by over 250 MU-affiliated colleges, there aren’t many institutes with BBA and BCA courses.
The Association of Non-Government Colleges (ANGC) wrote to the University of Mumbai (MU) and requested to allow colleges to change the names of courses. While the varsity is in favour of the proposal, it’s yet to take a formal decision on the matter.
