MHCET 2018 to include questions from Class XI syllabus

The level of MHCET for engineering admissions is going to get tougher and at par with JEE from 2018. To help students prepare well for both state and national level entrance exams, the Mahasrashtra state government has decided to raise the standard of the state CET from this year. Though there would not be any change in the marking scheme of MHCET, there are chances that DTE might do away with the negative marking system in the exam. 

According to a government resolution issued recently by the higher and technical education department, the government has asked the Maharashtra Board of School and Higher Secondary Education to upgrade the Class XII curriculum.

Joint director of Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Dayanand Meshram was quoted as saying, "The GR states that the state board should take steps to improve their syllabus, exam pattern and evaluation kee ping in view this decision.Students will, therefore, be prepared well for JEE any time by just preparing for the CET".

Earlier, Shiksha has reported that MHCET examination pattern is likely to undergo a few changes. A meeting at the Directorate of Technical education (DTE) witnessed recommendations about making changes to the current syllabus and pattern of MHCET along with aligning the exam at par with the national level engineering entrance - Joint Entrance Exam (JEE).

Meshram was quoted as saying, "There were some suggestions about making certain changes in the CET syllabus at par with the JEE. This was in lieu with the recent chaos over NEET as the decision of implementing a common examination for admissions to medical and dental courses came at the very last minute. If such kind of a decision is taken in the future with respect to JEE, students should not bear the brunt of it".

The idea behind introducing a change of this sort is to help students prepare for the best and compete with other state students. "We want to ensure that students do not suffer if there is a decision to have a common entrance examination for engineering in the future. Also, making the difficulty level of the MHT-CET at par with the JEE would ensure that students prepare for the best and can compete with students from other states", added Meshram.

Here's what you should expect from the new MHCET examination pattern and syllabus changes:

• The exam will be tougher like JEE.
• It would have both class XI and XII syllabus instead of only class XII as JEE is based on concepts taught in both years.
• No negative marking
• With the increase in the difficulty level of MHCET , students would score lower but would still get admissions

One of the major hurdles in making changes to the existing exam is the low number of takers for engineering seats in state colleges as compared to the high number of seats available.

Dr Gopakumaran T Thampi, principal, Thadomal Shahani Engineering College said, " There is lower demand for engineering and several seats lie vacant. If the difficulty level of CET is increased, students would score lower but would still get admissions. Also, there will be a bigger market for coaching like there is for JEE".

Check MHCET 2018 important dates here!