CHENNAI: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) decision to lower the eligibility marks for the engineering courses to 45 per cent has received mixed reactions from educationists here, with some viewing it as a negative move that would hurt the students in the long run while other say a positive step that would help those from rural and underprivileged background.The AICTE, in its approval process handbook, reduced the qualifying marks for engineering courses to 45 per for Open Competition and 40 per cent for the Reserved categories from 50 and 45 per cent respectively. The new norms would be implemented from 2012-2013 academic year.Terming it as a “backward step”, former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, E Balagurusamy, said that students with such low marks will find it difficult to cope up with the demanding curriculum and end up dropping out.“When students scoring as low as 40 per cent compete with students securing very high marks, their morale and self-esteem gets degraded and they get demotivated,” he said.Rather than encouraging all students take up engineering, the government should help them identify where they are strong, he said, adding that AICTE has bowed down to pressure from incompetent private engineering colleges across the country, who want the eligibility norms to come down so that vacant seats could be filled.Another former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University, on condition of anonymity, said that the change will have little impact on Tamil Nadu as the State already follows a lower eligibility norm of mere pass mark for SC/ST and Most Backward Communities and 45 per cent for Backward Classes. However, it was only among the Open Competition, where the entry criteria was 50 per cent, that the change would take place.He said that Anna University had followed a higher entry cut-off of about 60 per cent in the previous years, which was cut down keeping in mind the government’s policy of inclusiveness. While such a move could help improve the vacant seats situation in the State, which was over 40,000 for the current year, it might result in students falling prey to unscrupulous engineering colleges that function without proper infrastructure.Founder-Chancellor of VIT University G Viswanathan said that many private universities in the State follow a stricter entry norm. For example, at the VIT University, Open Competition students were expected to score 60 per cent in core subjects for admissions to engineering courses.Viswanathan said that apart from lowering the cut-off marks, AICTE should also concentrate on improving standards of coaching in the colleges. “When students with lesser marks come in, there is a necessity to spend more time with them in order to help them cope up. This could be achieved only when coaching in colleges are upgraded,” he said.
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