The government is mulling a proposal to discard the 50% weightage given to class 12 marks in the KEAM entrance examination for admission to various professional courses.
The proposal, submitted by Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (CEE) A. Geetha, comes against the backdrop of the education boards in the country opting for varying methods to declare the Class 12 results. Despite several States cancelling their board examinations, Kerala had chosen to go ahead with its Plus Two examinations. The government has also expedited steps to facilitate the evaluation of answer scripts on a priority basis.
Both the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) scrapped the Class 12 examinations two days ago.
Official sources pointed out that results declared through a process of normalisation of marks or lenient evaluation might not become an accurate indicator of the students’ intellectual capacity. Besides, the chances of delay in declaring the results could stall the entrance examination process.
Since 2011, the State has been finalising KEAM ranks on the basis of a 50:50 criteria wherein equal weightage is given to both the score obtained through the entrance examination and the marks obtained for Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry in Class 12 examinations.
While scrapping the decade-old system would require a policy decision, the government is likely to factor in the Centre’s decision to abandon the 40% weightage given for Class 12 marks in the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) examinations.
The CEE has initiated steps to conduct the KEAM entrance examinations for engineering and pharmacy courses on July 24.
