IITs may be ‘centres of excellence’, but that is no reason to stall the move for a common admission exam with other central colleges, many of which are top notch as well.
The new norms for admission to the IITs and other central engineering colleges, expected to come into force from next year, are an exercise in obfuscation. The May 28 notification had proposed a common entrance examination for IITs and other institutes, taking the results of the Class 12 exam into consideration. However, to call the exam ‘common’ is a bit of a misnomer. Rather than move towards one exam, like, say the UPSC, and base the selection on ranks, what we are seeing is a situation where the candidates give one exam but are assessed in different ways to determine whether they will enter the IITs or the other institutes. It cannot be more absurd. The IITs had all along opposed a common exam, fearing the loss of their control over selection, and thereby their distinctive identity. They did not want the Class 12 results to influence the admission process. Now, they seem to have got what they wanted – of fully being able to control the selection process despite a so-called common exam for all institutes. This has been made possible through a recent order that raises the number of candidates that are eligible to write the JEE (advanced), the exam to be administered by the IITs after the candidates go through an elimination round called JEE (main). By raising the number of candidates that should be cleared in the JEE (main) to 150,000, the weightage given to the Class 12 exam would have implicitly been diluted and the JEE (main) reduced perhaps to a farce. So, after much sound and fury, nothing much is likely to change. The coaching classes would thrive as always, preparing students for the JEE (advanced), just as they do for IIT-JEE.
The government should not have backtracked on its May 28 order, which was right on two grounds: Having a common exam by which all candidates and institutions can be judged and giving due pride of place to the Class 12 exam. At present, students focus on the entrance exams rather than their higher secondary exam, and attend any number of coaching classes, some of which have acquired a dubious renown for being able to ‘crack’ the IIT-JEE paper. Besides privileging the well-to-do student over an economically deprived one, this has led to selection of students of uncertain quality. The IITs may be ‘centres of excellence’, but surely their candidates can be picked from an exam common to other central colleges, many of which are regarded as top notch. They should work together with other institutes to evolve a more robust JEE, and not look down upon them.
True, the school-leaving exam is known to promote rote learning over conceptual understanding. If the IITs feel that a weight of 40-50 per cent for the school-leaving exam is excessive, one can peg it at, say, 30 per cent now and gradually increase it, while simultaneously improving the standards of the Class 12 exam. The IITs should take an active interest in improving the quality of the school-leaving exam. The issue at hand is to raise the level of technical education across the country – to not merely preserve excellence but to spread it.
Keywords: IITs, ‘centres of excellence’, stall the move, common admission exam
Comments:
I don't agree with your proposal of taking 40% board exams weightage. Rather using board exams as cutoff will do better. Quality education surely is for all but we need base level education reforms for scaling up quality products. Boards weightage should be decided keeping in mind the various boards and their respective differences for eg. CBSE and UP board%. Thus it is better to use Boards mark as cutoff. Present performa is nice for it. And what i feel is better solution can be reached out like IITs faculty proposed initially -make all india exam(for selecting55000)+mains(for final list)
IITian wants to lead an elite life. They treat all others as inferior. This is imperialistic attitude. High time Government must recover the cost of student's expenses from them in case if they they go abroad , at one go and from them @50% if they get employed in India .
After all POOR Indians pay and they boast as if came from heaven.IITian (as well, all Government funded Post Gr. Educated Students)should not be given tax sops. IITians and such others work as a club and we have to teach them to spread the excellence and not to keep to their heart.
how can equate all boards as same, all the top students of everyboard as same, first you should have a single board and single standard exam and honest evaluation with qualified evaluators, then think of giving importance to board marks, with such a heteerogenicity in the country, giving weightage to the board marks means killing the oppurtunity for real talented children,
As rightly pointed out by the author, coaching classes -
"privileging the well-to-do student over an economically deprived one". That's why they should not be encouraged.
This analysis is deeply flawed:
1. Coaching classes thrive because of poor quality of education in schools - dont kids take tuition in geography? or biology? (not for IIT's)
2. Schools boards are "dumbing down" in a misguided attempt to "reduce" load on students. An examination system is MEANT to grade and DISTINGUISH between various levels of academic achievement. If this "discriminating" ability of exams is taken away, what's the use of these exams (witness the ever-rising cut-off for admissions to regular colleges)
3. The purpose of the IIT exam has been to provide a level playing field with no extraneous conditions - you do well in a particular exam and you are selected. Period. This has worked well. Why fiddle?
4. If number of seats are low, and demand is high, quality of exam has to be increased to discriminate. One way to solve this is to further increase capacity - NOT reduce admission standards.
5. To think IIT's can influence state boards is living in a fool's paradise
In the present system of IIT-jee, Any student whether from poor or rich, rural or urban background had to work hard with a single focus of getting through JEE. Which required indepth understanding of cocepts of Phy, chem and maths. I have seen many fellow IITians coming from very humble background, who got through by their hard work and by studying from second hand old edition books without joining any coaching. They didn't had to worry about board results. But now they will come under tremendous stress and will be thoroughly demoralized.
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