Sibal for common varsity tests

In a meeting with state education ministers on Friday, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal pitched for uniform entrance tests for admission into higher educational institutions.

In a meeting with state education ministers on Friday, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal pitched for uniform entrance tests for admission into higher educational institutions.

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“We are working on a strategy to reduce the multiplicity of entrance exams for entry into higher education and restoring the weightage to Class XII performance,” Sibal said.

For entry into an institution, class XII marks and entrance test could be the criteria. The marks of different boards could be equalised through a mathematical formula for weightage.

To start with, the CBSE, a school education board under the HRD ministry, will merge the All India Engineering Entrance Exam and All India Pre-Medical Test, Sibal said.

After the merger, physics and chemistry will be common for both, the medical students can answer only the biology paper and the engineering students can answer the mathematics paper.

The Council of Boards of School Education has already prepared a common curriculum in science and mathematics. He said the state boards should adopt the curriculum that would help in holding a common entrance test.

The government has also planned to provide 60 lakh teachers life and health insurance.

“I discussed with state education ministers today on the plan for starting insurance and housing schemes for 60 lakh teachers. In principle approval has been given by them for the schemes,” he said.

(with PTI inputs)