New Delhi:
Critical about holding of multiple entrance exams for admission into higher educational institutions, Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has pitched for uniform entrance test.
To start with, the CBSE, a premier school education board under the HRD Ministry, will merge the All India Engineering Entrance Exam and All India Pre-Medical Test, Sibal said.
The merger of AIEEE and AIPMT will help students immensely. While Physics and Chemistry will be common for both, the medical students can answer only the Biology paper and the engineering students can answer the Mathematics paper.
Addressing the Education Ministers' Conference, he said his Ministry was presently debating whether it is possible to have one common exam after class XII that will test general awareness and aptitude.
The universities will give weightage to the Class-XII marks and entrance marks of students while giving admission.
For entrance to institutions, class XII marks and this test could be the criteria. The marks of different Boards could be equalised through a mathematical formula for weightage.
This will give an opportunity to children from economically weaker sections who are not able to avail of coaching and get through the current system of entrance exams.
Sibal underlined that this was just being debated at present, as the current system is being seen as unfair for the poor and the under privileged.
"We are trying to prepare a system under which students will not have to appear in exam after exam," he said.
The Council of Boards of School Education (COBSE) has already prepared a common curriculum in science and mathematics. He said the state boards should adopt the curriculum which would help in holding a common entrance test.