If you are student preparing for MHT-CET, and you haven’t been in coma for the last 15 days, you may be well aware that some people have initiated a movement to scrap MHT-CET — the gateway exam to med, engg and pharm colleges in Maharashtra. The Govt. has formed a study panel consisting of members from DMER, MUHS, State H.S.C. Board, etc. All these people are creating a “proposition” consisting of silly reasons and going to knock the doors of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.

Hon’ble Minister of State for Higher and Technical Education, Shri. Rajesh Tope reasoned out that students have already started preparing for MHT-CET 2010, they will conduct MHT-CET 2010. Some other members have said that MHT-CET puts more stress on the students and hence it must be got rid off. Any person, with a little common sense, irrespective of whether he is a member of the study panel or not, can tell you that if you cancel MHT-CET 2010 as well, the students who are right now in Std. XI will have reduced stress. So why doesn’t the Govt. do that right away instead of waiting for MHT-CET 2011?

I sense that “serious business” is involved here. One thing that first comes to my mind is the “coaching class” lobby. Coaching classes usually charge their fees as well as start their coaching programmes well in advance. According to my estimate, coaching classes cover 40% of the portion and spend 80% of the funds in the vacation period, and the remaining 60% of the portion and 20% funds are spent in the “regular” periods. If they cancel MHT-CET 2010, the coaching class lobby will be have serious problems as students and parents will demand refund of CET fees. Since the coaching classes have made all preparations, its is difficult for them to refund this money without incurring a HUGE loss.

Now I see why the unfateful students appearing for MHT-CET 2009 and MHT-CET 2101 will be made to “bear the stress” but the forthcoming batches will have “reduced stress”.

A panel had been setup to explore the possibilities of scrapping MHT-CET. The panel has provided an update through the media. The good news is that MHT-CET 2009 and MHT-CET 2010 will be conducted.

I could point out few interesting miscalculations of the panel. Shri Rajesh Tope, Minister of State for Higher and Technical Education has made a convenient mis-statement while speaking to the media. He confidently said “It will be cancelled from 2010-11, so that students who are currently in class X will know about it.” The fact is that Shri Tope can at most propose to scrap MHT-CET–the actual decision to whether scrap or not lies with the Supreme Court as MHT-CET is being conducted as per a Supreme Court ruling. Such misleading statement made by responsible personalities are the actual birthplace of rumours and uncertainity among students.

Dr. W.B. Tayde -Director of DMER, complains that students from urban areas have much brighter opportunities than those from rural areas. I would like to bring to your notice that “Rest Of  Maharashtra(ROM)” has a gross total of 1210 seats across 10 medical colleges for MBBS through MHT-CET, Vidharbha has 500 MBBS seats across 4 medical colleges and Marathwada has only 350 across 4 medical colleges (Source: MHT-CET 2008 Preference Book by DMER). The actual no. of seats may reduce by about 40-60 after discounting reserved seats for GOI, defense candidates, etc. The rule is that for any region(ROM/Vidh/Marath), only 30% of the seats can be allotted to those outside that region. The rest 70% seats must be offered to candidates from the same region in which the medical college is located. As a result, students from ROM area-which includes Mumbai urban and suburbans have much brighter chances of being admitted to a medical college. You can see for how conveniently the blame has been passed instead of attributing it to lesser no. of seats in rural areas. Frankly, its a myth that there are no good “teachers” in rural areas. There may be lack of “coaching classes”, but good teachers are definitely present. Also, the teachers who teach CET are almost always the ones who teach HSC. If he complains that teachers are not available there, then who teaches HSC syllabus in those places? Dr. Tayde should have boldly stated, or perhaps he subtly implicates that the teachers are not up to the mark to teach CET. Another reason he points out-”Also, the ICSE/CBSE boards’ curricula is much better than our state board, and this helps them to pass the exams easily“. Actually, this is plain misconception. Dr. Tayde is refusing to recognize and credit the unique pockets of MHT-CET. All said, this is the price students of Maharashtra are paying because our syllabus has remained mediocre. Students of Maharashtra have very little chance beyond MHT-CET and few other Maharashtra-oriented CETs because our syllabus is too low-level to fetch anything worthwhile outside the home ground.

Another member on the board of studies of MUHS, who has not been named in the newspaper report, has come up with a new dimension saying that “CET is based on objective questions and a medical student needs to be subjective.” I wish to inform this ignoramus anonymous that post-graduate medical entrance is an totally objective examination. Where is your “subjective” angle in this case? He also adds that “Objective questions can be solved through guesswork too.” Can’t guesswork be done in subjective situations? Further, he dares to add that “The CET is not helping us get quality students, so we have proposed scrapping the exams.” I seriously want to know what definition of quality Mr. Anonymous follows. The passing rate as well as highest-marks for MBBS examinations has steadily been increasing over time. In fact, I have heard many Professors in Medical Colleges saying  sarcastically “Its is easy to pass MBBS under MUHS. During our time, it wasn’t so easy.” Myself being a medical student, I have the opportunity to compare current question papers with those 20-35 yr old question papers. I can confidently say that MUHS question papers are remarkably easy compared to the 3-decade older ones.

The bottom-line is that fate of MHT-CET and of many capable students is unfortunately in the hands of people who are biased, full of misconceptions, and hasty to make decisions without diligent thinking. It a curse to study under a Board which chooses to remain medicore, but I guess we have very little choice in this matter. Other thing that bothers me is that all the above analysed opinions of the Study Panel are the ones which have been conveyed to the media. I am more afraid of those possibly senseless allegations that may have been made in the report that shall be submitted, but are not conveyed to the media.

Our State Govt. is desperate to abolish MHT-CET –the common entrance test for medical, engineering and pharmacy courses in Maharashtra. A report has been published by Times Of India, which can be read online. MHT-CET is being conducted as per a Supreme Court of India ruling, and this proposition to abolish MHT-CET is the State’s initiative.

A panel has already been appointed to explore ways to abolish MHT-CET. Few reasons cited in the above and some other reports are that

1. Declining importance of H.S.C. Board Exam
2. Profiteering of coaching classes
3. Increased study load on students.

I personally think that all the above cited reasons are silly and will not stand against the Supreme Court. This move by the State seems a move of convenience rather than providing any real benefit to students.

If the importance of H.S.C. Board Exams is declining, then I am happy to see that its getting the less importance its worth. The methodology of testing in H.S.C. board exams is too outdated. Marks scored by student depend not only upon his efforts, but also upon the examiner. Now do you all really think that an ‘examiner’ should be a deciding factor? The fate of the student should depend only upon his exam preparation and an objective evaluation of it. The ground-reality is that the H.S.C. Board cannot even provide precise guidelines for examiners to evaluate answer papers. Their so called “Sanctioned textbooks” are full of factual errors and inconsistencies. Some lazy examiners do not even bother to read the answers and some even adopt practices like evaluation on the basis of presentational beauty. This is the precise reason why we see every year students who failed later pass out with flying colors after verification of marks. I wonder why the Govt. thinks that the H.S.C. Board Exam is worth any importance after all this. Their website cannot even enlist the sanctioned textbooks, and private book publishers are actually profiteering from such lapses.

Some teachers are supporting this move to citing increased study load as a reason. While a few of these may have genuine reasons, other are mostly incompetent teachers at CET. Teaching for theory-oriented H.S.C. exam is lot easier than CET. The CET not only tests a student’s expertise but also the teacher’s expertise. The bulk of the teachers opposing CET are old-fashioned who will either retire within the next 10 years or be phased-out by better ones. I have myself been a ranker at MHT-CET(Med. Rank-333, Yr: 2005, First attempt) and myself experienced the incapacity of some teachers. I wish these teachers would understand that CET is not their cup of tea and gracefully allow other teachers to do their job.

If the Maharashtra Govt. really feels that their H.S.C. Board Exams are really worth the importance, they should have a reason why H.S.C. toppers do not perform well at CET. Maharashtra Govt. is like evolution read backwards!