Union Home Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal announced that efforts were underway to carry out single national level entrance test by 2013 for pupils looking for admission into engineering and medical courses.

While speaking on the sidelines of ''Review Meeting on Core-curriculum for Science and Mathematics for +2 Stage'', Mr. Sibal said that if pupils want to succeed with equal chance, they should be admitted into the engineering and medical institutions via single test.

"In this meeting, on the basis of understanding of earlier meetings, a core-curriculum for the science and maths stream at the higher secondary level has already been prepared and there is 90 percent unanimity amongst the secondary boards present here….There is near unanimity that core-curriculum should be adopted. Now the question is that on the basis of this core-curriculum when an all-India test should take place; of that we believe that it is possible in 2013 and not before that," Mr. Sibal added.

He also said that this would lessen the load on pupils and assist students achieve equal opportunity.

Sibal met 20 presidents of school educational boards from different States to talk about the syllabus in the science stream.

"We have also requested the chairman of COBSE (Council of Boards of School Education) and the chairman of the various secondary boards to look into commerce as the next stream for which we can prepare core curriculum and hopefully we will be prepared in the next three months. Hopefully, it will be adopted after three months; we are still working on it. So, there will logically be all India test; only one test for entry into the college system, into the university both in science and commerce," he said.

The Indian HRD Ministry is taking serious steps to modify the Indian education system and to lessen pressure on the students.

During the last year, HRD Ministry declared that there would be no Board exams for the pupils of class X in schools affiliated to CBSE. The move would be applied by the coming year.

Board examinations would be conducted for this year but a grading system would be launched. (With Input from Agencies)