State scraps December CET; both exams to be held after Class 12 boards

The state government has reversed its decision on the CET for engineering and pharmacy admissions. The exam will still be held twice a year, but the December paper will not be conducted.

According to information from the Higher and Technical Education Department, the decision to hold the exam twice stands. Both exams are held after Class 12. The CET Cell has also backed this.

The government began holding the CET twice from 2026-27. Students get two chances to take the exam, and the higher of the two scores is counted in the admission process. Because the decision came late in the first year, both papers had to be held in April and May.

A different plan was being considered for 2027-28. The CET Cell had decided that the first CET would be held in December 2026 and the second in April 2027. The reasoning was that the JEE is also held in two sessions, so the CET was to follow the same pattern.

The December paper drew strong opposition from rural areas. Parents and coaching class teachers in Dharashiv, Nandurbar and Chandrapur wrote to the government. They said the decision had been taken with the big coaching classes of Mumbai and Pune in mind.

Few students in villages take the JEE, and the Class 12 syllabus is not complete by December, they said, which would put pressure on students. Parents said it was unfair to their children to ask them to sit a paper before they had been taught the syllabus.

After these complaints, the government sought the views of education experts. After consulting them, it finally decided to cancel the December exam. Both CETs will now be held only after the Class 12 exams, one in March-April and the other in April-May, with a gap of about a month between the two papers.

The higher score of the two papers will be counted, as before. Students are advised to take their board exams with a calm mind first and then prepare for the CET.