Lok Satta welcomes single entrance Exam for professional courses

The Lok Satta Party today wholeheartedly welcomed the Union Government move to hold a single national entrance examination for admission to engineering, medical and commerce courses.

The proposal made by Union Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal is long overdue, said Lok Satta leaders Katari Srinivasa Rao, V. Laxman Balaji and V. Vijayender Reddy at a media meet here today. A single examination would spare students from appearing for multiple examinations at multiple centers.

The Lok Satta leaders pointed out that nowhere in the world a regional approach to higher education is adopted in a federal country.

The Andhra Pradesh Government should lap up the proposal as it confers immense benefit on State students.

The Lok Satta leaders recalled that the Supreme Court had more than two decades ago ruled that all colleges offering professional courses should earmark 15 percent of their seats to students from all over the country. Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir are the only two States which are not implementing the Supreme Court directive. Since Andhra Pradesh does not allocate 15 percent of seats in its colleges to outsiders, professional colleges in other States are denying the reservation to Andhra Pradesh students.

The skewed Andhra Pradesh policy has been doing immense harm to Andhra Pradesh students. Andhra Pradesh students have demonstrated over the years that they outshine students from other States in all competitive examinations for admission to professional colleges. For instance, they have been bagging a disproportionate share of seats in Indian Institutes of Technology because of the rigorous coaching they undergo and other reasons.

For instance, of the 30,000 seats in medicine in India, about 4500 seats are open for competition to students from all over the country. Since Andhra Pradesh does not throw open about 450 of the nearly 3000 medical seats in the State for outsiders, Andhra Pradesh students are denied the opportunity of competing for the 4500 seats elsewhere in the country. Similarly, they have not been able to get admission in some of the prestigious engineering colleges outside the State.