Earlier, admission to professional courses depended on the results of both the Plus-2 exam and common entrance exam; the latter has now been scrapped.
A government press statement said this will cover professional courses like Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Bachelor of Medicine/ Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelor of Pharmacy, among others.
The new system will be implemented from the current academic year 2005-06. This will be done with a fresh prospectus, which will set out clearly that the Plus-2 examination is itself the entrance examination for admission to higher level courses and all those who applied earlier will be automatically treated as applicants in the new system.
According to the statement, new applicants can also file their applications and a revised time schedule will be issued separately. This schedule will ensure the counselling process starts in early July 2005.
The earlier practice of allowing students to take improvement examinations thereby improving their Plus-2 marks for admission to professional courses will also be done away with from the current academic year.