The Commissioner for Entrance Examinations, Kerala decided to reverse its controversial decision of reducing the negative mark from one to half. In a press release issued by the CEE, it was stated that the nagative mark will be one this year as usual and not half as mentioned in the prospectus.
There was widespread criticism over the decision of the CEE to reduce the mark to half and its subsequent ratification by the Education Minister M.A.Baby. The major criticism was that this was to help the private self-financing college managements who were seeking to fill their seats by hook or crook. When the negative mark is reduced to half, almost all the candidates who attempted the entrance examination would figure in the final list of eligible candidates prepared by the CEE for professional course admission.
Dr M.P.Chandrasekharan, who is on an expert panel constituted by the State Government to suggest reforms in the present mode of professional course admission, had decided to approach Kerala High Court against the decision to reduce the negative mark to half.
This expert panel had long before recommended the State Government to give fifty percent weightage to the marks of qualifying examination for professional course entry and allow only fifty percent to entrance examination marks. They suggested that this would reduce the dominance of coaching centres on the entrance exam and the professional course admission. However, the State Education Minister M.A.Baby is yet to take a decision on the recommendation.
Already there is a criticism that several brilliant but poor students who are able to come out with flying colours in the qualifying examination can't cross the entrance examination due to the absence of sufficient coaching, which is monopolised by certain coaching institutes. Only rich candidates have access to these coaching institutes.
For the CEE's notification on negative marks visit http://cee-kerala.org/