A file photo of students, accompanied by parents, at the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) office for document verification in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
The second-round of mock seat allotment results, published by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) for admission to professional courses, including engineering and medical, for the year 2024, shows students from government pre-university colleges and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) Board schools doing poorly compared to their Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) counterparts.
Strikingly, no student of any government PU college has not got a seat in the first 1,000 seats in medical courses. When first 2,000 seats are considered, only three seats were secured by students of government colleges.
The performance of ICSE Board students is even poorer, with only one student securing a seat among the first 2,000 in medical courses.
In contrast, the performance of students of CBSE is good, and they have got nine medical seats among the first 500.
The KEA, which has launched the admission process for professional courses for the year 2024, has recently published the second round of mock seat allotment result. The first round of seat allotment results will be announced on September 1.
Among 500 top seats
Out of the first 500 seats of 10 professional courses, including engineering and medical, students of government colleges have secured a total of 201 seats. They got seats in architecture (51), B-Pharma (14), engineering (18), B.Sc Nursing (8), ISMH (AYUSH) (13), B.Sc (Agri) (14), Veterinary Science (Practical) (37), B-Tech (Agri) (38), and BV.Sc. (8). They did not get any seats in the medical course.
ICSE Board students bagged only 28 seats in the first 500 seats in all courses. Out of this, 16 were in Architecture, 2 in B-Pharma, 3 in Engineering, 2 in B.Sc Nursing, 1 in ISMH, 2 in B.Sc (Agri) and 2 in BV.Sc. However, in Veterinary Science (Practical) and B-Tech (Agri) courses, not a single seat was secured in the first 1,000 seats.
Strikingly, students of CBSE got more seats. Out of 70 ranks in the top 10 list of seven courses, only three ranks went to State board students. The remaining 67 ranks were secured by CBSE and ICSE students. No student of government PU college was placed in the first 10 ranks. Out of the first 500 seats in all courses, a total of 823 seats went to CBSE students.
How to improve
Despite the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) text books being taught for science stream in all PU colleges in Karnataka, to facilitate admission to professional courses, students of government colleges seem to be performing poorly in CET and NEET exams due to lack of proper training.
“Most students of ICSE board prefer to take Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) exams and want to go for the premier technical institutions like IITs and others. That explains them not taking too much interest in these exams. However, students of State board and government colleges are failing to face CET and NEET without proper training. Therefore, the government should train the students of government colleges for CET and NEET from the first PUC,” urged Mahalakshmi, a parent from Bengaluru.
“Most of the students in government colleges are from rural areas and have studied in Kannada medium. They are socially and economically backward. These students are not able to get coaching for CET and NEET exams by paying high fees. The State Government has announced a provision for free NEET and CET exam coaching to these students from this academic year from April, 2025. This is a good initiative and we hope that it will benefit government college students,” said the principal of Government PU College, Bengaluru.
