Shillong, May 2: Students studying in private colleges and colleges aided by the state government across Meghalaya will, in all likelihood, not require to appear for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) to get admission into undergraduate programmes.
Informing this, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said post his meeting with the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi today, it was agreed that these colleges would be exempted from following the new system.
“When I expressed the concerns of the students and colleges, the Minister understood the problem and a positive response came from him where they have agreed that there will be certain areas in which they will try to exempt some of our colleges which are not necessarily centrally-funded – privately or aided through the state government – those will not have to appear for the exam,” Sangma said.
The CM said the state government was awaiting the official communication from the Centre in this regard, which is expected to come in a day or two.
“We are hopeful that students who study in these colleges will not have to appear in the CUET. This is a positive response and we will wait for official communication from them to ultimately inform everybody about it,” he said.
Confusion and apprehension galore over the past few weeks over the announcement of implementation of CUET to be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admitting students to different under graduate (UG) Programmes in central universities across the country.
Requests and concerns were raised on the applicability of the new system given the lack of preparation and lack of testing centres in the state.