– Reshma Ravishanker

In what could bring some respite engineering seat aspirants who are appearing for the COMEDK exams, this year’s paper will take into account a reduction of syllabus as prescribed by the CBSE board and state’s pre university education department while framing questions. COMEDK exams are scheduled to take place in the first week of September.

Just like the previous years, the exam paper will have 33 % of its syllabus based on first PU syllabus (class 11) and another 67 % based on second PU (class 12). Although this pattern remains unchanged, students will have questions only from the reduced syllabus prescribed to them by their respective boards. Both PU Board and CBSE had prescribed a 30 % reduction in syllabus this academic year.

Popularly known as COMEDK (The consortium of medical, engineering and dental colleges of Karnataka), was scheduled to be held on June 20 and was postponed following the onset of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Candidates were given an extension upto June 15 to submit their applications. So far 51,600 candidates have registered.  

Authorities have now said that the exams are scheduled to be held in the first week of September, a few days after completion of Karnataka Examination Authority’s Common Entrance Exams.

As against 183 cities in which the centres were located in previous years, this time the authorities have proposed to have centres in over 230 towns and cities to help students during the pandemic. This will not only ensure social distancing but also allow students to opt for centres closer to them. 1.25 lakh terminals are being set up by TCS to facilitate the exam process.

Dr S Kumar, executive secretary, COMEDK said that students can prioritise three centres of their choice and they would be given an allocation in one of them. “Each centre will be filled only up to 50 % of its capacity. The number of centres will be decided post-June 15, basis the number of applications we receive,” he said.

All Covid-19 related safety measures, such as providing invigilators PPE kits and ensuring candidates have masks will be followed.

“We will have two different sessions for as we divide students into two batches. One in the morning and another in the afternoon. Normalization process as per same process as adopted by IITs is being followed while preparing question papers to ensure the same difficulty level of both papers so that students do not complain about any disparity,” he said.

ONLINE COUNSELLING

Centralised online counselling will happen even this year for candidates after the completion of exams. Even document verification would happen online through DigiLocker. The COMEDK authorities have been approaching education authorities in different states to ensure access to DigiLocker. In the case where the facility is unavailable, data is being taken from the state boards for verification.

“If enough time, even four rounds of counselling can be done. We must be considerate. Not all students are tech-savvy and might make some incorrect choices or enter wrong options. To the best extent possible, we want to ease the admission process for them,” said Kumar. 

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