The second phase of counselling for the TSEAMCET (Telangana Engineering Agricultural Medical Common Entrance Test) was halted by the Telangana High Court on Wednesday. Concerns were raised over the rule that students must have secured an intermediate exam score of 45% in order to secure an EAMCET rank. The High Court has ordered Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTUH) and the state government to relax this norm, as several students who took their intermediate exams through TOSS (Telangana Open School Society) will not be able to secure a rank.
The court has ordered the state to issue a new government order, in order to accommodate the TOSS students. The counselling process will commence when the new order comes in, according to the court. According to a Times of India report, the Court order came after Saketh Chaitanya, a TOSS student, approached the High Court in this regard.
In the absence of their exams due to COVID-19, all TOSS students were passed with a score of 35%. Those aspiring to qualify in the EAMCET are currently unable to do so because of this, even if their EAMCET score is high. Currently, the EAMCET rank is calculated by combining a weightage of 45% (general category) or 40% (reserved category) of a student’s intermediate score, and 55-60% of their EAMCET score.
TOSS students believe that if the exams were conducted for them, they would have had a chance of scoring more than the 35% that was assigned to them.
However, there are mixed views on this issue. Telangana Intermediate Lecturers Association President, P Madhusudhan Reddy, said to TNM that reducing the intermediate exam weightage for everybody might not help the cause of the EAMCET, as the process of filtering 'merit' students would be affected.
“With the blanket reduction, several hundreds of students would get qualified easily and it is only beneficial for the private engineering institutes as they go and join there. In turn, for TOSS students whose TSEAMCET scores are more than 60% should be given an opportunity for the qualification in EAMCET.”