With no response to their protest, repeaters of the Common Entrance Test (CET) have decided to challenge in the High Court the Karnataka Examinations Authority’s (KEA) decision to not consider the II PU marks of 2021 for the CET ranking for the 2022-23 academic year.
Girish Kulakarni, a parent, told The Hindu, “The note by the KEA hurts the hopes of thousands of students and parents. We have no way other than challenging it in court. CET repeaters are facing a huge loss in ranking in 2022 when compared with the previous year. My daughter secured a rank of 28,000 with 114 marks in CET last year in the engineering stream. This year, her rank has dropped to 1,49,000 with 125 marks. After outrage and protest against the injustice in the CET-2022 ranking list, the Higher Education Minister promised to call a meeting with KEA officials and parents to find a solution to the problem. However, there has been no progress on this front. CET-2022 document verification will start on August 5. Before that, we will go to the court and try to get a stay order.”
Sinchana, a repeater from Shivamogga, said, “Last year, I got a rank of 5,000 in the engineering stream. I was planning to join the medical course, but with a low ranking in NEET, it was not possible. I took the CET again this year and got a rank of 95,000. The KEA did not mention anything in the CET notification about not considering the II PU marks of 2021 students for CET-2022 ranking.”
Apart from launching #JusticeforKCETdroppers online campaign on Saturday, student unions also have been demanding justice for the affected students. “CET-2022 results have created an atmosphere of tension and outrage among students. The KEA argues that taking the previous year’s II PU marks into consideration for repeaters would affect the system. However, students are questioning this decision,” Ajay Kamath, State secretary, AIDSO, said.
“We all know that due to the pandemic, II PU results last year were declared by adopting an evaluation method without the exam. The government had assured that the evaluation would be done scientifically after consulting the stakeholders. So, if all the process followed was correct, then why not include these marks while granting the ranks of CET repeaters?” he sought to know.
