‘Emphasis on weightage to school board results and JET will add to pressure on students'
The alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi will move the court against the Union government's decision to hold a common entrance test for admission to undergraduate engineering courses from 2013.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the IIT-Delhi Alumni Association here on Friday. The participants expressed fears that the emphasis on weightage to the school board results and the Joint Entrance Examination (Main and Advance), proposed under the new format, would add to the pressure on students rather than reduce it.
Within a week, the alumni will file public interest litigation petitions in various High Courts, so that they could be heard before June 5, when the Central Advisory Board of Education will meet.
The meeting demanded that status quo be maintained till 2014 and said the new system would result in further mushrooming of coaching centres.
The association said it should be allowed full control of the examination and admission and school marks should act as a cut-off and not given any weightage. The new system has also been rejected by the All-India IIT Faculty Federation.
The new system was announced on May 28, after a meeting of the Joint Councils of the IITs, the National Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology with the Federation of Faculty of the IITs. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal chaired the meeting.
The association, representing more than two lakh graduates of the IITs, said the government had “no right to impose a common entrance exam on the IITs.”
The association and the Faculty Federation sought more time to discuss the implications of the new system and said the IIT Senates should have the final say and their decision could not be overridden by the IIT Council.
The alumni have planned to meet the Prime Minister.
“HRD Minister Kapil Sibal did not keep his promise, made to different stakeholders, of not going ahead if there is even one dissent, and here 5 out of 7 Senates have given their dissent in writing, but the HRD [Ministry] still went ahead. The IIT Council is an advisory body for admission process, and [the] Senates enjoy the conclusive authority over the admission process as per the IIT Act,” they said in a statement.
Keywords: common entrance test, IIT-JEE, entrance examination
Board marks decide only the eligibility for Advanced test. IIT ranking will be based purely on the performance in Advanced test which will be conducted by JEE. Hence, there is no dilution of merit in IIT admission but the coaching centres of Andhra & Rajasthan which totally neglect the board exams will be affected.
Without having a common syllabus and common examination for all state
boards, CBSE and ICSE HOW CAN YOU EQUATE THE MARKS OF ONE BOARD WITH
OTHER BOARD MARKS. It is a clear injustice and punishment to student
community if they equate all board marks in one sacle and thereby
providing admission to NITS and IITS. India became a country of
injustice because of this foolish decision. No body is against to take
board examination marks for admission to NITs and IITs. But all boards
can not be treated on one scale. Otherwise you abolish all boards and
have only one board all over India and then you take that mark for
admission into IITs and NITs. It is a strong violation of fundamental
human rights and when people go to court it will not stand there.
Without having a common syllabus and common examination for all state
boards, CBSE and ICSE HOW CAN YOU EQUATE THE MARKS OF ONE BOARD WITH
OTHER BOARD MARKS. It is a clear injustice and punishment to student
community if they equate all board marks in one sacle and thereby
providing admission to NITS and IITS. India became a country of
injustice because of this foolish decision. No body is against to take
board examination marks for admission to NITs and IITs. But all boards
can not be treated on one scale. Otherwise you abolish all boards and
have only one board all over India and then you take that mark for
admission into IITs and NITs. It is a strong violation of fundamental
human rights and when people go to court it will not stand there.
This is utter stupidity. how can the 12th standard marks be taken into account here. this will give an unfair advantage to students from syllabus like the Tamil Nadu state board, where everyone seems to get 100% marks in most subjects. But I wonder how many of them actually sit for the IIT-JEE exam. The govt should see some sense and let the entrance exams continue.
Dear Mr. C K Raju, in any democracy, the public indeed has the right to object anything it wishes. Ironically, that is the only way the concept of 'of the people, for the people, by the people' can be realized. When the public outcry is loud, it represents majority dissatisfaction -- a clear message to the political masters that their 'moves' could cost them votes.
as a student who has appeared for all this exam in 2009, i think it a
very good move.... it will reduce pressure and examine student overall...
for IITS board and JEE main will be qualifying and JEE advanced will be merit determing.. fair enough to match standard of JEE..For NITS, 30, 40 and 40 weightage to board, main & advanced. for state colleges it is upto them to decide to distribution.. nice work govt......
Tomorrow another politician (minister) would suggest that "weightage" should be given for performance in elementary school or even in kindergarten.
IIT is a public institution - funded by the people of India. Its fate cannot be left to be decided by the faculty members, who are the beneficiaries of this public funding. For instance, if the Parliament wills that 50% percent of seats are to be reserved to girls - which is a social obligation and a constitutional objective - then, no one has the right to protest. Faculty intervention will be applauded only if Parliament's actions deviates from discharging any constitutional or social objective. Altering the mode of entrance has no meaning at all for an institution that works at imparting such skills. Expecting students to have such skills apriori is foolishness as far as an educational institution is concerned - the teachers are in a way signalling that they do not have the skills to teach or impart problem-solving skills to one who (according to nationalised schooling system) is trained to accept and reproduce such skills. Minister should take entire Parliament into confidence.
Kapil sibbal has ruined the entire education system in the past 8
years of UPA rule. Firstly they have removed mains paper from JEE 2006
onwards. Secondly, the CBSE X exam has become a joke. Thirdly, a lot
of IITs, NITs and IIMs have been opened without any valid reason and
the quality of education is degraded rapidly in these elite
institutes.
Now this is the biggest joke of the year to make common admission for
NITs and IITs. Atleast they should have thought that if a student
fails to do good in JEE, then he may take his chance in AIEEE. Now if
any student performs badly, then his whole one year effort will be
wasted away. As far as marks weightage is concerned, there are lot of
crammers who can score 100 percent in board exam but cant solve a
simple question in ITT-JEE.
Whether +2 scores should be given weightage in JEE? I say an absolute NO because JEE was formed to verify the aptitude and knowledge of students for admission to IITs and if you can crack JEE, you are equivalent to any other person who has cracked +2 with a high score. So weightage of +2 results in JEE is pure illogical. Weightage of +2 in JEE is like giving another quota to high +2 scorers.
Now that said, I believe any technical institute should have collaboration with industries and companies for every kind of department it has, wherein their students could work while learning the same in the institute. I believe working in core sector should be mandatory from year 2 onwards for any professional technical institute. There are many who are very good when it comes to academics in the innocent classroom environment, but the same people falter when practicing it commercially or practically due to extreme working conditions or peer pressure. Companies use their own industry specific formulae which are not taught in colleges; So, if students get an exposure to the industry from the college itself, they can adapt to these conditions and perform better later after placements. These students will be more valuable, more confident of their knowledge and will get better pay packages. .... (Read Ahead)...
The IITs were formed keeping in mind the progress that the alumnus could bring later through technical and economical advancement. It is high time differentiating institutes based on the level of students it admits. Nobody is a born winner or a born looser. A student can score low in +2, work hard, get an IIT degree but it won’t promise success in life; well the same goes for those who score high in +2 and are preferred for admitions. To achieve success, the minimum you need is to learn some technical skill. (be it IIT or not), be the best in it and amplify your learning by utilizing it to help the world by being an entrepreneur. Don’t depend on MNC's or Govt. Jobs (remember job security is a misnomer). Learn to create something which could help masses and amplify your creation through entrepreneurship. IIT’s were made to create highly proficient technical entrepreneurs/scientists who could make India compete with the best in the world. .... (READ AHEAD)
With my experience at IITover a long period of time as student , I want to keep some of the bullet points:(1)Even a student who is scoring 50% marks in 10+2 has the capability to crack IIT-JEE. So, donot give weigtage to 10+2 marks.Talent and great minds donot require marks to prove themselves.And in a country like ours where schooling system pathetic it is not feasible. (2)Exam should be in two parts P.T. & Mains. Why I am saying because through analysis of concept the student have should be checked before entering to centre of exellence. And day by day reservation is increasing and talent pool is getting diluted selection exam should be tough.
So, this is the way we can have single parameter for selecting the student. We canot play with the talent pool of the country.
The coaching for JEE is still much better and skill inducing than the coaching for +2 or AIEEE. There is no escape from coaching or corporatization of education in India as long as the roots are not changed! One simple comparision of the students enetering IITs in 2005 and earlier to those entering now already shows the decline in quality and thought process of even the best due to the cancellation of JEE mains and making the entrance purely objective. India has got a much better talent than US and HRD must stop blndly following the 'US way' in everything. If it can do any good, it must be in developing better policies and provisions in India's top grad schools.
Different board have different level, one student which scores less
marks in one board can score very good marks in another..will there be
normalization "board wise" or "score wise"? Also there be many papers,
which be in hand of 10+2 schools..will it be fair marks provided by the
schools in such subjects? Inclusion of 10+2 weight-age is not fair..also
it will create chaos in the system..how such a big decision has been
taken by a few people without any consent and vigorous study?
1. Scope for coaching classes increase as they will now provide coaching for 12th as well. 2. What about students who are good in competition but dont believe in cramming stuff which fetch them marks in board exams. (this thing is known to all) 3. Is it not an exclusive education system? Those who are doing their primary and secondary education in not so good schools, they are already out of the competition. 4. A system where in you fail once, you are out of the league. For god's sake this is not a death race, one who could no do well in 12th could still get into an IIT and NIT by working harder next year. In this system they will have to waste another year studying 12th-
ALAS!!!''
I totally disagree with this solution.If you are giving weight-age for
SSE Marks then there must be a centralized examination.If this is not
possible then the same needs to be discarded.
Prof Krishnamurthy, I beg to differ. Unless we have a common (very high) standard across all boards, a student getting (as is common in our country) 99% in a weak board gets an undue advantage over a more deserving candidate, who manages a mere 80%. The solution is to make the process of selection immune to the strategies of these coaching classes, and I am sure the IIT alumni will be more than willing to come out with proposals.
With regard to the IIT-Delhi alumni wanting to go to courts, I am sure the alumni from Madras, Kharagpur, Bombay and Kanpur will not be far behind. Should the need arise, we will start with a signature campaign to protest the move. In the worst case, I guess, we will have to boycott all IITs altogether and start equivalent institutions in the private sector (like ISB did), with corpus from private (Indian and International) sources. I think that will appeal to the likes of Nandan Nilekani, Arun Sarin, Vinod Khosla and Narayan Murthy.
reply to Prof.R.Krishnamurthy:
i hope at least u have seen jee entrance paper n Q.paper in IITs. plz be unbiased and tell me...can even a single question be solved just by mugging (i.e without understanding fundamental concept of the topic).in jee and IITs it is unlike other entrance exam n college exam Q.paper.
obtaining marks in 12th is not difficult...one can do it just by mugging..CBSE is very good example of this...where studs score even 100% but can not solve simple question in jee.the whole idea should be looked with fair mentality and a vision with better india.
.. CET with weight-age to Secondary School Examination Marks is the
best solution. Now ,what happens is the coaching classes especially in
AP coach the students to work out problems [of JEE natue] vigorously
just like the students studying Vedas repeat verses and get mastery
over them even without understanding the significance and concepts
behind them . So it is a common feeling and well talked of subject
among professors of IITs and other higher learning institutes about
the poor quality of students selected. So they HRD's recommendations
should be given serious thought to select really meritorious.
1.It's downright silly to set 2013 as the target date for this change.
Is anyone in touch with reality?
2.Now, to whether this integration of the IIT and NIT exams are
needed. I'm not so sure. It's questionable whether a JEE type exam is
needed in the first place. In India, we often treat exams the same way
as entry fees at so-called sports/culture clubs -- the idea is to
eliminate, not to find talent. At least, the NIT/state entrance exams
don't absolutely force you to cram. To be fair, I don't know how the
JEE is these days, but it definitely required you to cram in the '80s.
3.The only positive I see in this move is that, a lot more teenagers
will go the basic science route, which is not such a terrible thing in
the long run.
4.I think our law makers need to realize one important thing:It's not
the integration/removal of exams that matter. It's the content of
exams and the quality of teaching that matter.
5. If there is any integration needed, it is that of industry and
academia.
Giving weightage to the school marks ensures that students with consistent performance can do well and secure a place in the best institutions. The argument of adding pressure is not a fitting argument in my opinion. The IIT exams were evolved so as to select cream students with originality. Unfortunately, with all the coaching institutes in this country, there is hardly anything new someone can come up with to test. As a result, even though application is tested in these exams, students have over a period of time started to approach it more as a rote learning method. The system should aim at producing engineers who can handle pressure and give consistent performance, not fly-by-night students with low motivation, who get in just for the fun of it and finally end up pursuing non-engineering related careers. I wish to clarify that I am not talking in air. I am a professor of electrical engineering and have seen several non-IIT students do well and even better in engineering studies.
It is the entrance exams that has to be abolished to reduce pressure on
students. It deprives millions of rural students (who do not have access
to coaching centres)to study in IITs in addition to adding pressure on
students. Syllabus could be upgraded to match requirements of joining
IIT. Moreover, many more quality IITs must be open to reduce trauma of
students struggling to get admitted into these 'prestigious
institutions'
Indian bureaucracy at its best: A solution that no one knows how to implement, and that does not solve a problem that does not exist!!!! Ask any student who is preparing for JEE/AIEEE :Is this scheme going to reduce or increase their burden (Assuming Sibbal is trying to reduce the pressure!) OR Is this scheme going to reduce their dependency on coaching classes or do they need these classes more than ever? (Assuming Sibbal is trying to curb out the coaching classes!) Ask Mr Sibbal: What is being done to improve the quality (continuously degrading!) of these institutes? What is being done to improve the quality of 10 plus 2 education system so that a student doesn't have to depend on the coaching classes?
Attributing failure of the schooling system to engineering
admission tests is to abrogate the responsibility of improving it, while serious problems such as lack of quality teachers and institution continue to remain unaddressed!
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