City loses sheen as education hub

City stumbles in course race
Deccan Herald

Endless confusion over admissions has meant that the once hankered after education hub is slowly but surely losing its charm for students.

Brand Bangalore is fast losing sheen. At least on the education front. Gaining fast in the race are ever-competitive cities like Pune and Chennai. Thanks to endless confusion over admissions to professional courses — whether engineering, medicine, dentistry or management — Karnataka, and Bangalore, are no longer the most-preferred destinations for higher studies to students from other states.

Consider this: the number of non-Karnataka students appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET) for BE, MBBS and BDS courses stood at a significant 58,754 in 2002.

This year, it is a measly 11,000-odd — despite the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental colleges in Karnataka (Comed-K) holding a CET-like test.

This wane in popularity is visible in CET statistics over the years. Till 2002, the number of non-Karnataka candidates had steadily risen from 21,849 candidates in 1998, to 32,623 in 1999 and suddenly jumped to 50,732 in 2001. In fact, in 2002, the number of non-Karnataka applicants — 78,313 — was higher than Karnataka applicants — 74,684 (though the non-Karnataka candidates who appeared numbered 58,754).

In 2003, when the first signs of uncertainty clouded CET, the number crashed to 34,595 non-Karnataka candidates (about 20,000 less than the 56,191 who applied!). Lack of a government-run surefire CET system is a major put-off, say officials. “We suggested to the government to at least allow non-Karnataka students to take the test, without giving guarantees, so that colleges which want to consider the State’s ranking could admit these students. But to no avail,” said a Visvesvaraya Technological University academic.

Pune, TN gain

Not only had non-Karnataka students boosted the State’s image as an education hub, but they had also helped smaller economy booms in several towns — tourism, hotel industry, public transport, even the railways and the postal department profited. Confusion in undergraduate education has extended to post-graduate courses too. Students are deterred from pursuing PG here.

Observes Dr Rejimon Thomas, Director (MBA) of Garden City College: “Our efforts to attract students will go in vain if confusion on the admission policy and fee structure is not sorted out.

“Neither the government nor the committees are resolving pending issues, and the fees fixed are so low that we cannot survive anyway.”

Agrees Dr S C Sharma, principal of RV College of Engineering, “Pune gains on Bangalore with its superior and analysis-oriented syllabus, besides giving hands-on training to students through industry-institute partnerships.

Similarly, Tamil Nadu’s leniency in awarding ‘Deemed University’ status to many colleges, especially in Chennai, has given autonomy to institutes in framing their own syllabus, thus improving quality.” Further, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have been liberal in allowing more colleges to mushroom — in fact, they have more engineering colleges than Karnataka.

Nursing courses thrive

Perhaps the only exception is nursing education. Nursing education has thrived with the government approving hundreds of nursing schools and colleges and looking the other way when managements fill seats however they want. In fact, with few takers from Karnataka for the BSc (Nursing) course, even the negligible government quota of 30 per cent seats are handed to managements — only to be filled with students from north India and Kerala.