The Hindu Business Line : Bengal to review JEE system

The Department of Higher Education, Government of West Bengal, in a bid to impart value addition to the technical higher education system in the State, has decided to review the existing Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) system.

The job has been taken up by the Central Selection Committee, with assistance from the West Bengal University of Technology and State Director of Education.

Talking to newspersons at the sidelines of the two-day CII-AICTE technical education meet here today, Mr Sudarsan Raichaudhuri, State Minister in-charge, Department of Higher Education, said the committee will undertake a complete review of the existing system and present its suggestions to the Government.

Asked if the joint entrance tests for institutions of higher learning, such as engineering colleges, would be diluted to make it easy for less meritorious students to enter the colleges, the Minister answered in the negative.

He said the review was being taken up in a normal course, and essentially to see if suitable changes could be brought about to benefit the technical education system in the State. He said all suggestions and inputs, including those from industry bodies such as the CII would be given adequate importance.

The Minister said a survey of the available pool of teaching resources in the existing 60-odd engineering colleges/technical institutions in the State was also being taken up by the Education Department.

He also sought self-study reports (self-rating) from the various colleges, institutions imparting technical education for rendering possible future assistance by the State Government.

Admitting that there was a significant shortfall in teaching talent in engineering colleges and other technical institutes of learning in the state, Mr Raichaudhuri pointed out that the concept of a nodal college within a cluster of engineering colleges could be adopted to overcome this HR deficiency. Suggesting that the best of colleges within the clusters could become the nodal centres, he sought the help of the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) in this regard.

Earlier, in his inaugural address, Prof Damodar Acharya, Chairman, AICTE, said there was a huge imbalance in capacity-building in engineering/technical education in the country. While Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu between them had as many as 500 engineering colleges, there was none in States such as Jharkhand, or the North East or J&K, he pointed out.

Citing India's advantage as a nation with a large youth population (60 per cent below 30 years of age), he said if properly addressed, India could emerge as a major supplier of technical graduates to many developed countries with ageing populations.

Stressing on the need for a high degree of learnability, and imparting of problem-solving skills among students, he said the diploma as a diluted form of a degree was actually killing the technical education system in the country.

More Stories on : Education | West Bengal

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page