Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur will hold a separate entrance test from 2013 if the Centre fails to annul its decision to conduct a joint entrance examination for undergraduate engineering courses.
“The decision was taken by the Senate, and the other IITs will also convene a meeting of their Senates and decide on similar lines,” Somnath Bharti, president of the IIT-Delhi Alumni Association, told The Hindu on Friday.
The Senate of the IIT-Kanpur said the IIT Council's recent proposal on admissions is “academically and methodically unsound and in violation of the Institutes of Technology Act (1961) and the IIT-Kanpur Ordinances (Ordinance 3.2 (Admissions)).”
The Senate of the IIT-Delhi was likely to meet next week and take a more severe decision, Mr. Bharti said.
On May 28, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal announced the government's decision to conduct a joint entrance examination from the next academic year. He claimed that the Senates of five of the seven IITs backed the decision as the government conceded their two major demands: they hold the authority to conduct the entrance test, and IIT aspirants be assessed in a different way.
However, within hours of the announcement, the IIT-Delhi Alumni Association threatened to move the court on the ground that a common entrance test would dilute the quality of the institutes.
It is also against giving weightage to the Class XII examination as suggested in the new pattern.
