Dons divided on utility of Common Test

COIMBATORE: Academics in Tamil Nadu see both merits and demerits in accepting the ISEET. Anna University of Technology (Chennai) Vice Chancellor C Thangaraj feels that introducing a common test would adversely affect students hailing from rural areas. “If ISEET is introduced, a majority of the rural students will not get an opportunity to pursue higher education. Only coaching centres will flourish commercially,” he contended. Pointing out that in Tamil Nadu, thousands of seats remained vacant in private engineering colleges, Thangaraj felt that the ISEET would be required only if these institutions were to admit students from other States since their standards and method of evaluation in examination would differ from ours. But, in Tamil Nadu 90 per cent of students joining engineering courses were from the State Board stream. However, former University of Madras Vice Chancellor S P Thyagarajan felt that the philosophy behind ISEET could be, that it could bring in cross cultural integration among youth and impart nationalistic perspective in them.