The ostensible purpose for which Minister Kapil Sibal sought to replace the IIT-JEE with a common entrance test for engineering was to reduce the burden of students who had to write multiple exams. But the new formula places more burden on students since they have to concentrate on their Board examinations as well as the JEE in two stages. The government’s purpose has been defeated. It need not have meddled with the time-tested procedures and played with the future of students.
T.M. Sundararaman,
Chennai
For the tenth Board examination, the government introduced grades system so that students could focus on overall learning, not just marks. But to get admission to IITs, it wants them to get into the rat-race of percentile system where every mark scored determines a student’s future.
Pratyush Ranjan,
New Delhi
Although a minimum qualifying criterion for qualifying in the JEE is acceptable, the stipulation that a candidate should be in the top 20 percentile in the State Boards is a retrograde step. It undermines the creativity and ability of students who lag behind in our rote learning based education system. The new formula will, in no way, reduce the burden of students.
K. Vishwanath Reddy,
Bikaner
The assumption that only students who appear for the IIT-JEE, AIEEE or PMT take coaching classes is not true. Students belonging to the humanities and commerce stream also do so in order to secure better marks and get admission to top level undergraduate colleges. So a common entrance will not solve the problem of coaching classes. Students will attend them for scoring better marks in the Board exams. A student is not necessarily stressed when he takes multiple exams but he comes under pressure when forced to study different curricula and prepare for different patterns of questions in different exams.
There are about 40 State Boards at the 10+2 level with different curriculum, question patterns and evaluation processes. How can marks scored under them be normalised? A new pattern should be adopted only if it is more beneficial than the previous one.
Sayandeep Sen,
24 Parganas (North)
The new formula sounds good but there are many pitfalls since the dependence on coaching institutes would be still exponential. Obviously if the students now have to come in top 20 percentile, the coaching sector would come out with some extra coaching classes.
Gurleen Kaur,
Mohali
Keywords: IIT, JEE, higher education