Cuttack, June 5: Authorities of the Ravenshaw University have geared up to conduct the upcoming entrance examinations for admission into various postgraduate courses in a hassle-free and fair manner.
The entrance tests will be held for four days from June 24 on the varsity campus as well as at another centre at Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi. The last date for application for the courses is June 13.
This year, for the first time, the varsity would introduce carbon-based optical mark recognition (OMR) sheets in the entrance tests. "We will provide OMR sheets to the students. The correct answers will be uploaded on the varsity website after the exams," said examination controller J.P. Das. Once the answer sheets are uploaded online, the applicants can check their scores by counting the right answers.
Besides, the varsity has fixed new eligibility criteria for the postgraduate admissions from this academic session. Das said the student, who had secured 50 per cent marks in the last qualifying examination, would be eligible for the entrance test, on the result of which, the admission process will be solely based.
"Earlier, there was a provision for students securing higher marks in the last qualifying examinations. But this time, we have decided to take into account only the marks scored by students in the entrance test," Das said. This decision is based on the rules being adopted by other national-level universities, sources said.
The university offers 28 postgraduate courses, including various self-financing ones such as information technology and science, information technology and management, journalism and mass communication.
The entrance tests will also be held for traditional courses, including applied geography, biotechnology, botany, Hindi and other regular subjects, with around 1,246 seats. The varsity received over 11,000 online applications for the postgraduate courses in 2014, while 10,538 students had applied in 2013.
The varsity would also change the existing reservation system for the undergraduate admissions.
A senior official said the university would provide reservation to students belonging to various categories, depending on the number of honours seat available in the respective subjects.
Earlier, there was stream-wise reservation for the SC, ST, OBC and the physically-challenged candidates and students from families of former servicemen.
The number of total seats available in various undergraduate courses, including arts, science, commerce and self-financing subjects, is 1,864.
