No CET for non-professional courses across Maharashtra, admission on basis of Class XII scores

There will be no common entrance test (CET) for admissions to non-professional (traditional) courses across state universities and affiliated colleges, said Uday Samant, minister for higher and technical education, Maharashtra, at a press conference in Pune on Wednesday. Instead, admissions will take place on the basis of marks received by students in Class XII.

On August 3, the Maharashtra state board declared the results of Class XII based on internal assessments by schools and three year performance of students. Before this, the CBSE and ICSE boards had declared Class XII results.

A meeting was held with vice-chancellors of all state universities on Wednesday afternoon, where it was unanimously decided that no CET should be conducted for admissions to non-professional courses, Samant said.

“We had received several requests not to hold CET since the academic calendar has been delayed and holding a CET would mean a further delay of several weeks. It has been decided that while colleges that have autonomy will conduct admissions at their level, this year even non-autonomous colleges can conduct admissions to undergraduate courses at their level by inviting applications and based on merit considering Class XII results,” said Samant.

Keeping in mind the jump in the overall pass percentage of Class XII students across boards, instructions have been given to universities to give adequate approval in the intake capacity of courses to accommodate the demand, Samant said.

“Compared to last year, there is a nine per cent jump in overall pass percentage and this year, 33,908 more students have cleared the HSC. I have given instructions to all universities that colleges should be granted additional intake capacity to accommodate the rise in demand,” said Samant.

CET for professional courses will take place as usual and Samant announced the tentative dates for the same.

He said the MHT-CET 2021 for engineering, pharmacy and other courses will be conducted in two phases from September 4 to 10 and September 14 to 20. From August 26, CET for professional courses like MBA, MCA, MA in architecture, Bachelors and Masters courses in Hotel Management and Catering Technology will also be held.

“The CET will be online but will be conducted at designated exam centres. Last year, there were nearly 175 exam centres where CET was conducted while this year the number is 350. We have ensured that adequate social distancing measures will be followed,” said Samant.

He also said that CET for courses with fewer students, like Bachelor of Education (BEd), Masters of Education (MEd), BA-BEd or BSc BEd, Bachelors of Physical Education (BPEd) or Masters of Physical Education (MPed), will be held from August 26 while CET for courses with greater number of students, like the five and three year LLB courses, will be held on September 16.

Samant said that all dates are tentative so far.