KCET fiasco & how Karnataka exams authority itself is doing 'out-of-syllabus' job

Meant for entrance exam & admissions to engg, med courses; recruitment tests thrust upon it

The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) was in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, over questions from deleted chapters of the II PU course that appeared in the KCET papers.

Following the episode of out-of-syllabus questions, the higher education department said it would issue a separate standard operating procedure (SOP) for KEA soon.

Experts say the very purpose of establishing the CET cell (later renamed as KEA) has been diluted over the years.

M Veerappa Moily, in whose tenure as chief minister the CET cell came into existence, said it had lost its focus, referring to recruitment examinations for various departments that KEA presently conducts.

“When I was CM, we decided to set up a dedicated cell to conduct a Common Entrance Test for admission to professional courses, mainly to help poor meritorious students and to abolish capitation fee. Now, the authority conducts recruitment exams for departments. It has lost its focus on professional courses,” he said.

Moily said, “When we started CET, it was systematic and transparent. The KEA should be exclusive to make admissions to professional courses, to avoid manipulations and injustice to students.”

He said seat allotment through CET should switch back to the offline system. “In the offline system, the seats were allotted in front of students and parents. As it has been shifted to online mode, no one knows what’s happening,” he said.

The CET system introduced in 1994 has been a model for several states. Delegations from other countries too have visited Karnataka to study the CET model.

Dr Rame Gowda, a former IAS officer who served in the PUE department and KEA as executive director, questioned the existence of the Karnataka Public Service Commission, if KEA conducts recruitment exams for the departments.

“If KEA conducts these exams, the government must close down KPSC,” he said.

Gowda said KEA’s purpose is to serve students and ensure all eligible students get admissions to professional courses without a hitch. “The KEA must be an academic body, not a recruitment agency,” he said.

Another bureaucrat who worked as KEA’s administrative officer said the authority was functioning in a highly questionable manner.

“In the recent episode of out-of-syllabus questions in KCET, the authorities are defending that they are right. This, despite experts confirming that KEA had erred. The government must intervene and post an efficient officer to head the authority,” he said.

As per details available from KEA, from 2021 to 2023, it has conducted exams for at least 21 departments. The exams include those for recruitment of assistant professors for degree colleges, KRIDL, KPTCL, veterinary assistants, degree college principals, BMRCL, KPCL, the PSI recruitment re-examination, Karnataka State Eligibility Test, etc.

The recruitment exam for any department takes three to five months. It can be recalled that the recruitment exam to fill 1,242 posts of assistant professors in government degree colleges in 2021 had run into controversy. The aspirants accused KEA of leaking the paper to favour some candidates.

Following the complaints filed by candidates, a case was registered at the Malleswaram police station in Bengaluru. A candidate and an expert who was part of the paper-setting team were arrested.

In two separate incidents, the High Court had imposed penalties of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh on KEA for allotting medical seats to ineligible candidates.