The issue: Uniform procedure was not followed while finalising the ranking of candidates of KCET resulting in injustice to >24,000 repeater students and denial of equality without prior intimation or proper explanation, i.e.,this decision was publicised after the announcement of results.  

On 30 July 2022, KCET result day, a note was released on the kea website,

Quote: “As per the Government order No: ED147TEC2020 dated: 01/09/2021, the qualifying marks of 2021 students was not considered for CET ranking for the Academic year 2021-22 and is not considered for 2022-23 as well.” Unquote

Initially applied only for Karnataka state board students and not for CBSE and ISC candidates. More than 600 CBSE & ISC 2021 repeaters' rankings were changed and released 4-5 days after the results were announced, clearly due to lapse on the part of the authorities.

click here: public link to the aforementioned Govt. order

It states, I quote, "2. Amendment of Rule 4:- ...."Provided that in respect of Engineering and Technology courses, merit shall be determined with reference to marks obtained in the Entrance Test conducted for the Academic year 2021-22."

 I fail to see/I cannot understand how KEA can declare ranking list of 2022-23 (i.e., this year's) as per above government order??

Quoting respected Ramya S ma'am(Executive Director, KEA), "The CET brochure clearly stated 50% weightage would be given to a qualifying exam and the other 50% to CET marks. The 2020-21 batch has not faced any qualifying exam. They were given an option to write the examination last year, and could have re-written PUC boards this time as well."

By the way, it's worth mentioning that 2020-21 batch has faced a qualifying exam i.e.,-SSLC/10th.

We all could've avoided this controversy just by warning candidates beforehand, that, the marking scheme released by the boards'21 (be it state level or national level), is not worthy enough to be considered at par with the board exams of other years, and hence have to re-appear in the boards in order to prove ourselves. 

But in reality, results/difficulty level of board exams of one year cannot be compared to any other year. This has long been discussed that the criteria used in KCET ranking, that is, 50% of Board marks and 50% of KCET score is unfair because of the differing marking schemes in different boards. 

If our batch's board exams are not valid, does this mean that in anything we apply to in the future, say, a job, which requires our 12th marks, it actually has no value?

We, and hope the responsible adults too, understand that Covid-19 was a disorderly, beyond our control period for all of us warranting cancellation of our "qualifying exam". 

The late announcements leave no scope for admissions even in, other courses, or for the privileged ones, even the paid seats with high fees.

Allow me to give you a small example. If one scores 8/10 in an exam, i.e., lost 2 marks, when converted to out of 100, it results in 80, i.e., lose 20 marks. Similarly, most people score relatively well in board exams, so 45+ marks is guaranteed for those who score above 90% in board exam. This provides an unfair advantage to many. Whereas if it's only kcet marks for some, and boards+kcet for others, see:

A student who got ~4k rank, got 40k after revised rankings were announced.

My friend who got 25k rank, degraded to 1.41lakh after revised rankings.

Two people who scored the same marks, fresher got 31k rank, repeater got >1.31lakh rank. Is it not a blatant discrimination or is it comprehensible/acceptable?

I firmly believe that justice must be served. Be it for 1 in a crowd of lakhs, or 24,000 amongst 2 lakh. One may say "Every year students will have one or the other issue, just get over it." This negligence/ignorance shouldn't be applicable to the 'issues' which decides another's future.

I am highly disappointed by the concerned authorities' response to the predicament. Just giving general statements to justify their erroneous act is very bad. We can "swallow the bitter pill and accept the rankings accorded" as respected Dr.Ashwath Narayan sir suggested, only if this was caused due to our lack of efforts and not due to irresponsibility by KEA.

Also, sir mentioned that this'll be injustice to >1.5lakh 2022 freshers and >1.5 lakh students who got seat in 2021 only through KCET marks. I cannot understand, when did justice be=majority? I would also like to ask, how in the world would it be unfair to the students who got alloted seats last year? We are competing with this year's students, not with last year's. If we consider such absurd notions, every year the difficulty level of the paper and cutoff keeps on varying, so that means repeaters of ANY year, aren't eligible, because supposedly it'll be unfair to the batch before them.

Suggested solution: Only KCET marks need to be considered uniformly to all the candidates, which result in ensuring equality. We request the Higher Education Ministry to take note of this just demand and publish revised ranking list.

Our fight is not against 2022 freshers. Please don't misunderstand or twist our words. We're fighting for our rights, to take back what's been done wrong. We just humbly request you to provide equal opportunities to deserving students for meritorious seats.

-Ana,

  A distraught CBSE'21 kcet repeater candidate.

 

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