Following demand from parents and students, the state Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell has decided to conduct an additional session of its first-ever entrance exams for Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS), Bachelor of Computer Application (BCA), Bachelor of Business Management (BBM) and Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) programmes.
Many of the aspirants, who had missed the test conducted on June 29 as they were unaware of it, have been asking for another opportunity to take the exam and seek admission to these programmes. The Cell announced its decision after consulting with the state government, though the schedule of the new test.
Until last year, the admission to these undergraduate courses was carried out on simply on the basis of the candidates' class 12 course. However, the state introduced an entrance test and a centralised admission process (CAP) for these programmes , as they were categorised as 'professional' courses by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
However, many of the students remained unaware of the new admission process. When they approached colleges for admission following the class 12 results, they were told that they couldn't be admitted without the entrance test. These students then approached the government officials to request another test for them.
The lack of awareness about the exam among students may also result in large number of vacant seats in these course. There are close to 1.08 lakh seats available for the four programmes in colleges across the state. However, 53,748 students had registered for the test, out of which 48,135 appeared for the exam.
Meanwhile, in a bid to bypass the control of AICTE, the apex body for technical education, many of the colleges affiliated to the University of Mumbai (MU) had changed the nomenclature of the popular BMS programme to BCom (Management Studies). This allowed them to continue admitting students without having them undergo the entrance test. Others though decided to get the AICTE recognition to retain the course name and 'professional' tag.
The apex body has been urging the colleges to bring their courses under its ambit, as it will standardise the curricula of the courses, and allow students to benefit from various schemes run by AICTE. However, many colleges are apprehensive about it as they believe that following norms for professional courses wouldn't be feasible or financially viable for them.
