In a first, the counselling for lateral entry to Tamil Nadu’s undergraduate engineering programmes, and MBA and MCA courses will be conducted online.
According to reports, the announcement was made on Sunday by KP Anbalagan, the Minister for Higher Education that the decision was taken due to the COVID-19 crisis in the state. The counselling for lateral entry of students to BE/BTech courses - which is the direct entry of those who have completed polytechnic course into the second year of engineering programmes -was earlier scheduled to be held at the Alagappa Government College of Engineering and Technology, Karaikudi. Around 15,000 students enter into BE/BTech courses in Tamil Nadu every year through the lateral method.
However, the dates for online counselling and the website details have not yet been announced.
Similarly, the counselling for MBA and MCA admissions in Tamil Nadu were scheduled to be held in Government College of Technology, Coimbatore. These will also be taken online this year, the minister added. While MBA courses in Tamil Nadu receive around 10,000 applications every year, MCA courses receive around 3,000 applications.
This comes latest in the steps taken by the Department of Higher Education of Tamil Nadu to move college applications and admission processes online. Recently the state government announced that the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions 2020 (TNEA 2020) will be held online due to logistical issues created by COVID-19 pandemic. The application window opened on July 15 and will close on August 16, 2020. The minister had also announced that the department plans to complete undergraduate engineering admissions by October 15, 2020. Similarly, the state government also made the application processes to Bachelor of Arts and Sciences courses in government arts and science colleges and polytechnic courses in Tamil Nadu fully online. The application window for these courses will begin on Monday.