Vijayawada: 1.37L to attend POLYCET tomorrow

Vijayawada: All arrangements are in place to conduct the AP Polytechnic Common Entrance Test (POLYCET-2022) on Sunday, said commissioner of technical education Pola Bhaskar.

Addressing newsmen at government polytechnic college here on Friday, he said that 404 examination centres and 52 help desks were set up in 26 districts across the state for the 1,37,371 students who would be attending the test for joining various polytechnic diploma courses in both the government and private colleges.

He said that the results of the test would be announced in ten days. The number of students who registered to appear for the test increased considerably this year. In 2020, 88,484 students got registered and in 2021, only 74,884 students got registered. However, this year 1,37,371 students got registered to appear for the test.

The test would be for 120 marks including 50 marks for mathematics, 40 marks for physics and 30 marks for chemistry. The OC and BC students who secure 30 marks (25 percent) would be provided with rank cards. All the SC and ST students would be given ranks.

The students would be allowed at the test centres from 10 am and after 11 am no student would be allowed into the centres. Since some of the photographs of the students are very old, every student should bring at least one identity card to appear for the test. Mobile phones or any other electronic equipment would not be allowed into the test centre. He said that the district collectors, superintendents of police, APSRTC and the municipalities and health department officials were requested to conduct the test peacefully.

Elaborating on the details of diploma courses, Bhaskar said that there are 84 government polytechnic colleges, 175 private colleges in the state offering three-year diploma courses in 29 branches. The fee in the government college is fixed at Rs 4,700 and Rs 25,000 in the private colleges. Referring to the number of seats available, he said that there are 17,004 seats in the government colleges and 53,565 seats in the private colleges. The government schemes are available to all the eligible students whether they join government or the private colleges.

He said that there are more employment opportunities for polytechnic diploma holders than the engineering graduates. He pointed out that skill development and employment skills are embedded in the polytechnic syllabus.

The government has been holding talks with companies like BHEL and L&T and others to provide industrial training to the students.