No more TNPCEE

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has given his assent to the Tamil Nadu Bill that seeks to abolish the common entrance test for admission to professional courses in the State. According to Higher Education Secretary K. Ganesan, the next step would be for the government to issue a gazette notification, which would contain the date from which the new Act would come into effect. For the past three years, the State government has been trying to abolish the the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination (TNPCEE) on the ground that rural students found it difficult to cope with the test. They were unable to either pay for or compete with students in urban areas, who had easier access to coaching centres.

(excerpt from The Hindu) The Tamil Nadu Government (India) has been pushing for abolishing the state wide entrance exam for engineering colleges in the state. Apparently a couple of days back, the President of India, gave his approval to this. So now what ? The state of affairs in getting admission into engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu is screwed up enough already. Now nepotism and bribery will reign supreme. What is education going to these days ? Two points I am ticked about:

Notice what the politician dude said, the next step is more of informing the press and a gazette notification etc. There is no mention of what the 'real' next step would be in, in terms of reform

The TNPCEE is based mostly out of the Class XII syllabus. I know, because I prepared for it. Why would someone have to 'pay' or 'have access to tuition classes' for this. Ideally, doing well in the XII boards in a state board school should qualify enough to get in.