Team Herald
PANJIM: As fear and anxiety loom over students with State government deciding to abolish Goa Common Entrance Tests (GCET) from the academic year 2024-2025, the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) has clarified that the admissions to undergraduate engineering programmes in State colleges will be based on students’ marks in Class XII board exams, irrespective of their performance in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Main.
However, it also said the engineering aspirants looking for admissions in NITs, IITs and other centrally-funded technical institutes, will have to clear JEE-Main on merit.
The DTE has decided to discontinue with GCET to save students from stress and to compete at national level. Since 2005, the GCET has been an essential criterion in the State to determine merit for admissions to engineering degree seats.
On an average, 2,500 students used to answer this exam, annually. There are 1,578 engineering seats across five colleges.
A DTE official has urged students and parents not to panic as Class 12 Board examination results would be taken into account for admission to undergraduate programmes such as Bachelor of Engineering (BE) and Bachelor of Technology (BTech) in State colleges. “The student will have to score 45 per cent and above to be eligible for admission, irrespective of its ranking at JEE Main. But will have to clear JEE, which our students do,” the official said.
“JEE scores/ranks are for merit purposes if one is aiming for admissions in IITs, NITs and other institutes,” he added.
