Time for IITs to discard the JEE

Back in the 70s when I went to JNU, IIT-D next door was home to talented
musicians, theatre lovers, bookworms, sportsmen et al...Now, I'm told,
the IITs are populated by the Kota types who can crack the JEE but do
little else...

Problem starts and ends with bad schooling. Also the greed of the
people. Parents invest in children for lucre and not excellence. They
send children to IITs only because of relatively better placements.
But the present day school education system kills the minds' originality.
Govt. knows this. It wants to hide this and wants to make an impression that Govt. has finally solved the schooling problem by pushing all engineering aspirants through a common all India testing machine. As far IITs are concerned they can be ignored. They are just an agency of exporting "India Talent".

As we all know, our education system doesn't encourage originality and
creativity. Majority of the students who graduate from IIT want to get a
job in US or some high paying job - where is passion? Forget Nobel
prize, with so many so called creamy engineering graduates from these
reputed institutions, why then we have NOT created artifacts or symbols
of engineering excellence? A total revamp is required.

Although the article does touch the core points, I think the author
fails to take some very important points in consideration.
Firstly, if taking the high school marks into consideration comprises
one half of the selection process, the high school exams need to be
uniformly conducted across the country. With a thousand state boards,
and other boards like the CBSE & the ICSE, how can regularity be
achieved? Especially, given the separate scoring patterns across
boards.
Secondly, as far as the issue of a few children not even being
interested in engineering but joining the IIT's just for the 'stamp'
is concerned, I don't believe much will change even with the suggested
approach. Who is to blame for this? The students, or their parents or
the teachers? This issue arises due to the lack of proper counselling
at the high school level. Why not have students (and parents) go
through compulsory counselling sessions to help them identify where
their true calling lies.

The author has put much importance to the School Board Examination marks. In my opinion it is misplaced. Practically all the boards examinations are full of malpractices with paper leaks and marks manipulations. Further those appearing for XIIth also depend upon on coaching classes and printed guides. The pity is that even teachers in schools depend upon printed guides to teach. They value answer by what they themselves have read in guides and give full marks to those who have written the word to word answer given in the guides and never bother to assess anyone's answer in their own words. There it is stressed on memory power than any originality. To give weight-age to marks obtained in such manner is meaningless. The present coaching system for IITs may be making living robots but it is better than those who have got in through immorally.

I would like to mention some points
1. I agree with the writer that the coaching institutes are no less than concentration camps. But, I would like to ask you, if the government implements its new rule to take entrance through a common entrance, then do you think will not create another concentration camp? I have seen the situation of some schools in my state (I prefer not to mention any names) which make students to do mug up subjects even like mathematics, 24X7, and the new policies will bring up more such schools.

2. I also would like to mention that the faculty see that students are not interested in engineering. Well, recent comments of our environmental minister on the faculty condition in IIT should also be considered.

3.In our country, the policies taken by government is for grabbing more votes rather development on whole, an open secret!!

The Shanghai rankings for TOP 100 Global engineering colleges, includes
both IISc and IIT-Kharagpur. You missed IIT-K.

I find a problem in including the high school marks for qualification
to get into IITs. In Tamil Nadu, the education system in school
encourages students to get very high marks by memorizing things(so
that they have high cut off for govt colleges as Tamil Nadu has no
entrance exam for engg and medicine). An average student can easily
get over 90% in 12th exam. But a very good student from a CBSE school
will get only close to 90% in his high school exam. Also in Tamil
Nadu most schools do not teach 11th std syllabus as they think it is
unnecessary. So a common basis to include high school marks is not
possible until the entire country has only one board of teaching in
schools. Each state can have their own language courses, but physics,
chemistry, mathematics should be same for all children across the
country. This can also be taken as a part of national integration.

People who are of the view that by changing the pattern of IIT-JEE
entrance exam would be helpful in getting the correct students(who will
be interested in engineering)in IITs have made many
assumptions.According to my understanding whenever IIT-JEE has changed
their exam pattern, the coaching institutions have also adapted
themselves accordingly.Similar debate took place when Mains exam in
IIT-JEE was scrapped off few years back, but non of the coachings were
affected by this rather they started offering their services from IX th
standard and may be from more junior classes. Also by not having a
common board of education throughout the country,giving weightage to 12
th marks does not seems to be feasible soultion.It is based on the
experience that when BITS Pilani used to admit students based on 12th
marks ,the students of many state boards were not able to get admission
due to prevailing differnce in evaluation process of different boards.

For decades JEE has played a pedestal role in selecting extraordinary students in
engineering stream best at par with any international test scheme. JEE has no doubt
become a brand of excellence and intellect for d country. IIT is famous not because of its
faculties but because of its students. And for that aspect the quality of student would be
inducted has a far reaching bearing with the quality of yardstick we are using in selecting
them.

For more then a decade govt. has kept on changing the core methodologies of the exam.
However the change in any exam pattern is the need of the hour but any changes costing on
the quality of exam would severely hamper the system itself.

The continuous change in exam pattern , course, Weightage etc would neglect creative
students and endorse coaching culture. Further addition of class 12 th marks would only
help students who can manage to get good marks in boards but not to those talented
students who couldn't score well there for any reason

The writer makes valid points on how IITs should look to strengthen
their research and PG education. However, his passionate analysis of
Chinese system of education seems quite interesting, given the fact he
missed many points. Take for example, The PISA 2009 test rankings and
the same agency claiming ‘every body reaches high levels of equity',
looks patently unsustainable. Further look at this scenario,in China
annually millions prepare for 'the gao-kao' (the high test,a SAT
equivalent). To make it into the good universities (there are lots of
them in China), they cram for 16 hrs day and may be take a break once
in three weeks and so on. This certainly would’nt make them geniuses,
but cramming robot’s. So simply scrapping the JEE is not going to
help, unless there is a reasonable equivalent of the exam that
replaces it. Further, the selection problem is systemic and not due to
JEE as there are too few seats and many takers which makes the test
ridiculous. Establish more institutes!

The reasons given by the author are not strong enough to justify the
ministry's move. Though I agree that the JEE must also focus on
general aptitude of a student. A one exam system may ruin a student's
entire one year if any mishappening happens on that particular one
day. If the government really wants to improve the education system
then they should focus more on the improvement of private engineering
colleges, the school education system and should focus on conducting a
fair board examination system. There are many more very serious issues
in India. Existence of IIT JEE is not posing any harm to the
education rather it has brought pride to our country

Can any of you tell us how many schools in cities and rural India develop pupils meeting the requirements of IIT. Children are burdened with substantial quantities of works in schools rather than quality of works. Children have limited access to Critical thinking, analyical processes and identifying logical conclusions in majority of schools. Repeatedly learning or memorising of problems & solutions over a long period make a student successfull in JEE exam.
Develop something to reduce theories and increase logics and more practical works in school itself. Think beyond American/Western and Chinese Systems
In many practical cases in life those who scored 70% marks have achieved much more than those scored 99% marks in the same field.

It does not require much research to get the picture of non-uniform
distribution of number of students cracking JEE from different
locations of India. It is already a well-known and celebrated fact
that number of students making it to the IITs will be much more from
places (zones those include) like Kota compared to others. These
places are infested with organisations providing IIT coaching classes;
and no question about their success rates. This means that the way to
crack JEE, can be taught. Here, where JEE has failed.

In future, to compete with the top universities worldwide, it is
really important to put stress on MTech and PhD programs. But to
attract good research students, the stipend structure should also be
readdressed and modified. Because, been brought up in Indian Socio-
economic structure, only few bright students, having the aptitude for
research work, go for 8,000/- per month as stipend knowing their peers
earning more than 80,000 in an MNC/Bank.

Dear Readers,
The HRD minister is right on scrapping the entrance tests. The Entrance exams have a rhetoric pattern and they do not screen the right candidates. The CAT Exam has so many questions on quantitave aptitude but MBA does not have any strong curriculum on Maths. So this only screens the right candidate. Is it that a student who does not know maths need not get in IIM or that he cannot become an entreuprener? The education system in india is rhetoric and dead. IIT's in India are not innovative to change to standards. They should not take a few candidates and make them innovative rather take all and train them. Education should not be given on the basis of these entrance test rather it should be on pure passion for the subject. These entrance test kill the ambitions of lot of students because of some stupid system which is not accepted worldwide.

A single exam increases the stess levels. For a student its like - "my whole future depends on a single day and I do not even have a backup exam"

Here are few points to ponder:
1. do you know what is the percentage of selections of all students who go for coaching? (ans~ 5 percent)
2. these students are those who are toppers of theirs schools.
3. Name one exam in the world which is coaching proof, or can be.
4. This is modern age, we need more services people and less engineering people, please stop talking like a person living in industrial age. And thats why people are drifitng in Fin and Mgmt.
5. IIT exam doesn't just test knowledge of subjects, how? because boards do it and they surely aren't similar to IIT-JEE.
6. Author is right in things like MTech and all but there is only one solution to improve the whole system:
Investment in primary and secondary education, our govt schools should be better than private schools, just like our IITs are there should be enough vacancy for people to study, If people are talking about poor people unable to afford coaching, you shd know, they are unable to afford primary education.

Excellent article my Dr. Mohan. While the HRD ministry's solution may not be the right one, the reality is that the JEE disenfranchises people who don't have access to coaching. In addition, the JEE requires young Indian learn an entirely different set of syllabus that has absolutely no use in the future for the majority.

The JEE tests students' aptitude in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics at a level that is typically taught in BSc courses when taken as specialization. If the aim is to select the smartest, it can still be done without using the existing JEE but modifying it to test people's aptitude in analytical thinking, mathematical ability, etc. To claim that the quality of people coming out of the IITs are because of the JEE is a self-defeating argument, especially coming from teachers who should take pride in what and how they teach rather than who they teach.

The JEE in its existing form should go as the article has suggested and a better solution can be found.

As a proud IITian I can say that the IIT-JEE examination is what
differentiates between real merit and rote learning . Seven years ago
, when I was preparing for the JEE , the time I devoted to solving
problems in Physics , Mathematics and Chemistry have really gone a
long way in making me able to grasp concepts easily in the lectures
that were to follow after I made it through . Life is not so easy ,
it never is . Aptitude tests like SAT do but test a student's merit to
a very very limited extent . As a result of which , the average
American undergrad in the Ivy league college lags far behind than his
IIT counterpart . What is most significant in the course of the
rigorous two ( or even 3 ) years preparation is that you develop a
spirit to fight , an attitude never to give up whatever be the problem
at hand . As someone famously said "Every starred problem we solved
was a mini achievement " .

When the country itself is lacking focus on the direction what to blame about the pattern of JEE? Do you need researchers or Engineering graduates who are running behind money to satisfy their desire with the help of IIT stamp? It is evident from the fact more than 60% top rankers in JEE opt for IT or Computer related courses due to the fact that they are immediately placed in fortune 500 companies and settle down in their life (buying luxury flats, BMW cars etc.) I do not blame them as we have created such an environment. Researchers are paid stipend of mere Rs.12,000 to 20,000/- p.m. during their research period (Phd.)whereas the same graduates if placed in IT companies are paid more and recognised in social circle also. Entrepreneurs are also interested in instant results as our country and hence we do not encourage research by allocating a small fund in the Budget. Things will never improve unless we change our thinking not the JEE and continue to buy CONDEMNED TECH OF MNCs.

Time to discard JEE and soon I.I.Ts too.Let us welcome the European and US Universities to India. I am sure Kapil Sibal will certainly do the needful. Thanks to the Indian political intelligentsia, Nehru's dreams are going to the ditches during his third generation ! Pity indeed !

This article is one of those that hints at generalities without even making an
attempt to get into specifics, that are they heart of the issue.
1. The number of seats remain the same, regardless of what the exam is - how
does changing the exam make it "inclusive"?
2. Does Mr Mohan seriously think that without "machismo" as he terms it, is
Physics, Chemistry and Math, a student will make a good engineer?
3. Yes, the present system has problems and IITs need to foster research.
However those are different problems from the ones under discussion in the
present imbroglio. Obfuscation of issues does not make them go away.
4. Mr Mohan, instead of focusing on the MHRD that is supposed to deliver
egalitarian education to millions of students and is failing to do so, chooses
instead to focus on the one set of institutions that is doing as good a job as
possible, given circumstances.

"The present selection system has failed to bring in students who are
genuinely interested in path-breaking engineering work"

So the new system will churn out such students???? Students who shall
lose all their imagination in their bid to get good scores at
Board!!!!! I have been a student recently, and I can tell with extreme
sincerity that students with very high percentage in boards may not be
intelligent too, but those who cleared JEE, they are in 100% of
circumstances. <

IIT JEE system is going on for last 60 years,I wish the teacher of IIT be asked to think a new to change the model so that private coaching institute won't dominate.Marks of the higher secondary examination should be considered for admission.
Ministry must not interfere with JEE they can request only to teachers.It is not an elite institute it is best in engineering studies.Research should be separated from UG studies.Why politicians spoil a great Institute?

When you have just passed 12th, you are clueless about your career and you tend to choose what is best at that point. There is no easy way to filter students interested in engineering/research, not sure why JEE is being blamed for this!

I do agree that there has to be a change, but dont think throwing away a well established system of JEE is the right approach.

I teach at an IIT and am alarmed by the increasing number of engineering students
who have absolutely no interest in engineering. I know there are many private and
government colleges around the country where a larger proportion of students have
a genuine interest in pursuing engineering. Prof Mohan's point is quite
straightforward: if we want to develop quality engineering education, then let's widen
the pool substantially so that motivation for this wild rush among parents and
students is not the IIT stamp per se but a genuine interest in training to become an
outstanding engineer

In materialistically competitive world any filtering system has flaws
whatever the examinations be

How much money IITs and IITians have taken from tax payers and how much did they return back ?
What net wealth they created?

By revamping JEE to one single exam which considers XII exams, the
issues are not going to come down. Why, because:
1.The new system adds to the stress instead of relieving by having 1
single exam. Just imagine the anxiety level the applicant will be
facing before the exam.
2. Till date, we can't consider the checking of Board Exams 100%
reliable (with respect to the proposed 50% weight-age).

If the main "issue" is to select the student with engg. aptitude and
you think current JEE is not capable of doing that. How will XII marks
make a difference. Having scored well in all 5 subjects is going to be
the criteria?
Honestly speaking - the issue is, we are not exposing the students
enough to the fascinating challenges in the respective engg. fields
that they are willing to pick it up as the profession.
As Prabal said above, the faculty should sit back and think on the
changes needed in curriculum.
Create facilities for current PhD students -ask them in a survey what
really feel & need

IIT is all about finding smart students and getting them enrolled. The smart students graduate on their own and take care of themselves. It is a kind of factory that produces bottles with IIT labels so students could find their own higher paying jobs. No wonder it couldn't find itself in world's top ranking institutions. It is time to change the educational system to match western style so they can produce independent thinking graduates.

A shallow and ill-informed piece. There are several reasons why the IITs are regarded an exclusive premier institution over the last 50+ years, and the most fundamental of those reasons is the barrier to entry, i.e. the difficulty of cracking the JEE. By opening the floodgates and mixing in regular high school performance with the selection process, there is bound to be a net dilution in the quality of students admitted to the degree that the outgoing products will also be less than stellar. With continued political interference in matters related to IITs, I see the IITs going the same way downward that RECs and Anna University went. If we remove the JEE process, in about 10 years no one will be speaking of IITs anymore because we will have succesfully erased their premier status because of our stupid socialistic politics.

Research has nothing to do with undergraduate students. Show me a
famous researcher's webpage listing undergraduate students in the
Us/Europe - it's none. And the solution for increasing research at
IITs is pretty simple, pay graduate students a decent stipend. Steps
have been taken in this regard, but stipends are still shockingly low.
Second, start employing postdocs. And thirdly, devise granting
authorities like the NSF, DARPA, ONR etc, with a clear, transparent
grant system, and link faculty tenure to their grants.
As regards undergraduate admission, Harvard, MIT, Stanford all have
admission percentages in the single digits. The SAT scores for US
universities function like an entrance examination. And the author
completely sidesteps the issue of widely diverging standards across
various boards, the main reason for IIT Kanpur's protest.

Prof. Dinesh,

You started the article stating all problem in the IITs but then you give no justification on how the proposed solution (replacing JEE with a common CET) is going to help. Increasing Class 12 weightage is only going to make things worse. IITs are always trying to reform themselves from within and there is no need for these stupid bureaucrats to interfere.

Abhinay
IITR'08

Many contradictions in the article. In the beginning it favours more debate on the issue and in the conclusion it passes judgement in the favour of new pattern. At one point it talks about equity while ignoring the fact the new pattern is goin to hit rural aspirants because of substandard schooling. And I don't understand how a quantitative exam, as proposed by the author, is going to taste scientific/engineering aptitute.

What irritates me the most after reading this article is the behaviour of the faculty union. Every teacher I have met takes great pride in being "autonomous". I feel the faculty has a right to academic autonomy if and only if it has financial autonomy. Elitism is rampant and for no apparent reason. Ironically, it is not the B.Techs but the rest who are responsible for such an elitist attitude within the IITs.

If IIT can turn dull student into smart person, then we can call this as a best institute. What is there (for IIT) in taking pride for polishing someone who is already smart?

This article sums up everything.I could understand from where the author come up with the issues as an IIT-ian myself.It is true that many students joining IIT's thru JEE not interested in Engineering at all. They already exhausted even before entering college with the amount of coaching pressure they had to gone through and many of them simply do not have mentality to learn the laboratory skills. The onus is on IIT's to make their entrance exams interesting and motivate the students really interested.Now the UG students only interested in brand name of IIT to get into some banking or software companies.IIT's should really encourage postgraduate and research students, if they really want to serve the society and nation.

why only engineering colleges?. 10 +2 exams marks must be added for
all other exams such as medical colleges,IAS exam, MBA courses etc. it
seems that Mr Sibal has his own interest for downgrading IIT's. MR sibal
himself cannot get admission in engineering but now wants to rule over
IIT'ans .

How I wish that a capable Minister like Mr. Kapil Sibla focuses his attention to open more medical colleges and nursing colleges in India and make it affordable to all youngsters.

I *strongly* disagree with the people who are trashing author's views in dumping JEE. The point is JEE never tested engineering aptitude properly.

People who are telling that merit based selection made them proud that they have achieved something in their life actually dont realize all they wanted is to crack a tough exam not an engineering exam...

Now dont get me wrong I am not saying IIT does not give good graduates or I am whining because I cannot clear JEE in my time but because presently it seems IIT graduates are more worrying about the JEE selection procedure rather than actual number of PhDs /research innovations done by IIT grads! We should improve engineering workforce quality (increase research and PhD grads) rather than just highly paid job workers! If that "mahaul" would have been there in IITs at present students wouldnt have flocked for foreign universities for masters/PhDs atleast!

This paper should STOP pushing writers like Dinesh Mohan who CLEARLY is NOT working in National Interest at all. It is shocking for readers that this paper which was considered independent is obviously looking no different than rest of the media which is Foreign Controlled. When this writer is taking China's education system as examplary, does he know that CHINA that it has all his own independent indegeious policies and does not copy, adopt, take or allow anything from U.S. blindly. On the other hand this Manmohan Regime has given blank chque to U.S. to write destiny of Billion Indians, by forcing dictated foreign, eduction, social, economic and defense policies. As for the education there is hardly any doubt in any intelligent Indians mind that Sibbal is directly paid to destroy the standard and system of India's education.

first education system should be put in right order.i think this system willbe benficial for copycats.

I feel the idea of entering students in IITs based on rigorous physics/chemistry/math(JEE) is not a great one in the first place. Instead an Engineer should be test on his analytical skills, attention to detail, creativity, logical thinking, problem solving ability, problem solving skills, communication skills and inclination to math. These skills can be tested in so many ways rather than going through tough physics/chemistry/math formula based exam system which gives coached students an edge over others.
I completely disagree with the notion that IIT intake is the best of the available talent in India, its the institution which makes the brightest. By giving credit to just the students we are demeaning the institution which has the capability to produce excellent entrepreneurs even out of ordinary students in schools.

The basic idea / argument being given for the change is
1. it will reduce the importance of coaching centres _ One can
already see all the coaching centres advertising for all the 3 type of
exams, Board, main & advanced
2. It will give importance to school education....Can the government
provide data of Board marks of present IIT students....in my view most
of them are having more than 75%in board exam....what does this mean?
Does Mr Sibal want them to score 100%?

3. Presently 5 Lakh student prepare for JEE and by this change 12-13
lakhs will be forced to prepare for JEE level ( advanced paper ) as it
will account for 30% wait-age for NITs & IIITs.....So coaching
industry will prosper.....

4. AIEEE was introduced with the aim of making it as the entrance exam
for all Engineering colleges, including private colleges and the
government failed in the attempt.

5. So, they are just changing the name and making one more
attempt...again a failure for sure. Did anyone consulted students?

THe JEE is skewed and benefits those who undergo rigorous coaching. If it selects a few skilled, it leaves out many intelligent. Candidates form a few states form the majority of those getting selected. The credit to an institution is when it raises the average to brilliance, as the author has indicated.
If a GRE can serve Stanford to a mediocre college why not a common examination for whole of India?
I was in 1953-57 batch IIT K selected on basis of school performance and interview. We had students from all over the country, some needed extra help but made it and had useful professional life preferring service in India.

JEE is best selection exam ,no-one has right to degrades it .If Mr.Sipal
wants to improve performance of IIT then he should dismiss some idle
faculties and should work in a way that enrich faculties quality.IITs
are famous mainly due to their quality of students(who got admission through JEE) and if hard-working enthusiastic faculties appointed then
performance will many many time increase.Derive some way to select
better faculties and give retirements to out-dated idle faculties.

Why does everyone think that the first step in the process of revamping
the higher education sector is removal/change of the JEE ?

Author in this article have expressed interesting views. I am IIT
Graduate and currently pursuing PhD in the same field of study.
However people here have expressed interesting thoughts but I would
like comment on the reason why IITs fail to attract good researchers.
I have stayed in IIT for extra one year to pursue research but lack of
infrastructure, funding and intellectual environment at Masters/PhD
level is demotivational. I couldn't attend international conferences
even after my paper being accept just because we lacked funding. In
this current state, most of the people who are doing Masters or PhD at
IIT are not doing because they are genuinely interested in them but
because they had nothing else to do. They were left with few options
and IIT stamp was best among them. Regarding contribution what they
are making is no-way and can never be more than what B.Techs have been
making. IIT have survived and been known for their undergraduates and
would prefer if it is left being so.

Its been a debate since decade that IITians used to opt to work for
MNCs rather than going for research, though they are the best
brains.Are they the best brains ?? Yes atleast 60% of them are better
than other. Now why they opt for jobs rather than research?? After
independence how many world class research facilities Indian Govt has
created?? Where are the infrastructure ??? How many potential
researchers govt can accommodate??
Now when 80% of the people who opt for PHD only to become
professors(not for advanced research) and submits their thesis by copy
pasting(twisting the language), we can imagine the research scenario
of our country. They will become guide for future PHD students !!!

The author seems to mix up a few issues. If he wants to create an educational system similar
to china''s which builds up the mass of student body rather than a select few, the focus
should be on the wider student body rather the top few. IIT is about building up the cream,
not everyone. Further the author does not argue against the success or quality of BTech
students who are selected by JEE except for the comment that these students are more
interested in theoretical rather than practical aspects of engineering. I am afraid that this may
be his personal bias. Even if this is not the case, the success of the undergraduate student in
engineering world over shows the JEE does a good job of selecting the good student. Should
there be scope for improvement, it should be taken up but he does not show how the current
proposal is an improvement! He comment on M Tech and PhD students is valid but they are
not selected by JEE! If we mess up JEE even the few schools will drop off the global list

This is a whole lot of hoopla by
- people who can not get in

Please keep the government out of IITs and everything about it. The government has an "excellent" track record of managing its affairs, we do not want that kind of excellence creeping into IITs and its selection process.

Politicians never tire of meddling in the affairs of the top institutions in the country. A couple of years ago, we saw the spectacle of another politician interfering in the affairs of AIIMS. The previous HR minister, Arjun Singh, started interferring attacking the IITs which have a very good reputaion internatioally and Mr. Sibal is following the same route. When politicains interfere in the affairs of institutions of higher education, the reults cannot be good for the country. In every advanecd country there are a few top notch institutions that stand out above the rest and where students are selected purely on the basis of academic excellece. In India, the IITs and AIIMS have so far been considered top notch institutions. It is impossible to make all institutions equally great by giving them the same name. Politicians should concentrate on improving the primary and secondary school system particularly in the rural areas.

A well balanced article, Dinesh. I was a professor at an IIT before coming to US with Dinesh. I was involved in JEE while at the IIT. I was a faculty in the IIT for 15 years. Now I am a professor at an University in US teaching very similar subjects as those I thought at IIT. I love to teach the students here in US as compared to students at IIT because, they bring in thought provoking ideas into the class room. Given a challange (as a homework) I get some very innovative sloutions. Interestingly some of them are from India !!
So, what is required is a way to bring students who are really intersted in Engineering and not just those who can cram answers to questions and show no originality.
Think for a moment, why the same students coming from IIT to US do innovative research work here in US? Simply because they are persuing the option they like here.
So, my appeal is try to come up with a solution that will admit students who love engineering and not those who can get 99.9% in tests

The situation in higher edcation is depressing for any academic. One major reason has been deficiency in infrastructure and finances. While universities have always been indigent, when IITs were borne they were rich. BUT THE INFRASTRUCTURE has crumbled, and NEEDS REPLENISHMENT, and IT COSTS MONEY. IITs have also become poor, especially by international standards. Mr Sibal seems to be totally unconcerned about these matters. Instead of trying to improve the standards of higher education as a whole, he is bringing all institutions to a ''common'' average level by pulling IITs down. To repeat my favourite quote: ''You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer''. [Winston Churchill]. Mr Sibal must try to elevate the universities as a whole, that at least some of them would reach international standards. If we want to make any progress in SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY, we have to increase the spending at least TEN-FOLD. Scrap subsides like that for Hajj.

MHRD is branding IIT Degree to World and now want to sell cramming
parrots of some boards which can not crack IIT entrance. I think there
is immense pressure from the parents and schools who can get high %age
but not IIT Entrance through...A lawyer is a lawyer always fighting case
whatever comes in hand.. whether IIT or Hiegher Education it will make
curry out of it.....
Sometime I feel like laughing

Most of the students who join any engineering stream do not have the complete image of what they are doing with their career. They just join for a better future that earns them a job with good package of salary. They end up doing something which is not their passion at all. Students must be guided at a very early age about the path that they want to tread. A satiated life is all one wants.

Even if MHRD changes the JEE format to something else, it will not
change the fact that over a hundred thousand students are competing
for a few thousand seats. No matter what the format is, there will be
coaching institutions trying to convert someone with an average IQ
into a high-performer in the tests.

Even the elite american institutions use things like SAT, GMAT and
GRE. How do you explain that those institutions have become a center
of technical excellence despite using such entrance tests for
admission. In fact the JEE is much more technical that those tests and
ensures that only people who have a reasonable knowledge of science
and mathematics get through.

I am afraid that the MHRD is looking at solutions that could help gain
popular support rather than looking at the problem in detail. I
believe that the reason that none of our institutions enter the top
ranks is due to the poor quality of research being done there. The
JEE's selection process is their only saving grace.

For the sake of the children let there be only one test for all
Engineering students. Similarly in other fields. It is surprising that
some IITs/ faculty are opposing the common entrance test. Even in
common entrance test, IITs, most probably, get the best talent. As per
my mind that IITs should not insist on taking the so called best and
building their own brand image. They got best facilities and generous
funding. They have the responsibility to contribute for the betterment
of education standards in the country and reduce burden on the
children.

This is a time for the IITs to come forward to help design a system that
addresses the very pertinent problems Mr. Sibal is trying to address -
too many exams and too much emphasis on coaching classes. As the author
says, the IIT-JEE has been a tremendous success - indeed perhaps the
only widely and consistently respected product of the IITs. On the other
hand, BITS Pilani, another respected institute has used board
examination results to select good candidates who have also gone on to
be very successful. So we do have experience in our country of both
designing good exams and putting different board exams on a common
scale. We need to put our heads together to think of a practical
solution that works for all. IITs cannot become great by making
themselves an exclusive "brand". For centuries, we have made the same
mistake with a few people at the top making education an exclusive
privilege. It is time to shed this approach and begin to think of ways
to collaborate and compromise

Scrapping the existing JEE for IIT may be a valid point considering the level of preparation which does not encourage creativity or aptitude, but in a way the whole education system in India is to be revamped. The exam method which being followed is only acting a filter , but with our population level, there is no other alternative also. 12th exam itself is like entrance exam for selecting the future course (engineering/arts/medical etc.,).Common entrance exam proposed by MHRD for all the students in India ( which ever stream they might
have studied) will be a dream unless all the state Govt.s join, which
is not going to happen due to politics and other realities ( like
rural /urban divide); Any exam requires preparation ( starting 12th
board exams) and somebody is always coaching the student ( schools and
tuitions in case of 12th and coaching classes for other exams) which
cannot be avoided due to demand and supply mismatch. As a father (
whose son is preparing for IIT) , I am pained to see the students have
to pay for the nonsense created by MHRD. If at all Joint entrance exam
comes, it should start from lower level , ie., joining all the state
Board exams and then going to the higher level like AIEEE and Finally
IIT. Without State Govts joining, it will be like the existing system
, only instead of AIEEE and IIT JEEE on separate days it will be on
the same day.The argument that students are not concentrating on 12th
exam is nonsense since they are not reading storybooks or watching
IPL to write JEE, but preparing at higher level which should be
encouraged

When do you get a quality product. When the product is put through a
stringent set of tests. You loosen the tests and all you get is scum. I
am from IIT and I am proud that I cleared JEE. You take out or change
JEE and all you get is ... well...

If you want to do something different then create a new system. Don't
change something that has been excellent for half a century.

May I imagine a hypothetical situation. Let there be another
educational institution by name XYZ Institute of Technology(XIT). Now
let the budgetary support provided to it be equal to that of any of
the present IITs. The entire cost of the infrastructure created is
neutralized i.e The land cost, the cost of construction of all the
buildings in the campus, the equipment in the laboratories, the
facilities for rooming in for the students & teachers.
Make the tuition fees at par or almost similar. Let the salaries of
teachers be equal.
Intake of students be thru' a national merit test where only top 1000
are allowed entry.
Now Change the SET OF TEACHERS.
Now if we visualize the output, it won't be less rewarding.
I want to say when you ensure the input which the IITs have been
granted free from the Public Revenue, the result will never be less
rewarding and may even give better result.
At least we can say that the experiment has not yet yielded any thing
miraculous.

It is a fact that the JEE exam as at present stands, cannot be taken successfully, unless the student joins a coaching class. Does it mean that those who attempt it without extra coaching and fail, are dumb fools who cannot understand and pursue the course at IITs? Let the IITs try one year to admit students who have done reasonably well in their Board exams(without the so called JEE) and see how they progress in IITs. It is the teaching at IITs that moulds them and the average school students can indeed take that teaching and shine. That is the philosophy behind the Civil Services Exams and persons with no extra coaching can pass the same. Such students also shine as good officers because of the training imparted. The IITs do injustice to students who cannot take the coaching classes! Performance at Board Exams and personal interviews should suffice for admission to IITs. This csnnot be dismissed as "grapes are sour" idea!

What is required as per my opinion is that:
1- There should be counselling at 10th n 12th level, so a student
knows the various opportunities that are available in research.
2- Like it or not, many students are unable to get the answer to
- Why I should not get a better salary if I have worked harder
than others. Hence there is need for increasing monetary benefits
of entering into a research career. After all our scientists n
PhDs deserve more than what they get at present and for many at
the starting point of their career seldom know what will really
satiate there desires n dreams.
With regards to giving weight-age to school tests. Are they
objective + What is the level of school education in India as per
the PISA tests.
Is the menace of coaching institutes not much more widespread at
school level,in form of private tutors etc. Interestingly, the so
called training is much easier at school level. Only past year
papers are to be mastered to get gem of a score :)

There are several points that I'll make here.

First, changing the system of the JEE because many students attempt
it only because of peer or parental pressure is idiotic. Students
should be given considerable counselling while in school so they know
there and then what they want to study. If some aren't interested,
they won't take the test.

Secondly, comparing ourselves with China is the wrong way to go. The
Chinese may have a very successful education story but reality does
tell us that the students there undergo even more stress than the
average Indian (See recent news).

We don't want to make armies of above average graduates. That's what
China is doing. What we need is innovation. We can't keep doing what
China is. We need to move forward. We need the few excellent
graduates; from all disciplines of study .

Changing the pattern isn't the answer. Unification of state and
central boards and betterment of the quality of education in schools
is imperative.

Started out as a balanced article and then ended up with terrible
flaws in the argument.

Most research worldwide is done by Doctoral Candidates, Post Docs and
Professors rather than Bachelor and Master Students. The JEE only
selects Bachelors and Dual Degree Students! Most of the Master
students enter using GATE! So if you want to improve research, you
need to have incentives that attract talented researchers to the IITs
and not mess up the ONLY thing that works for them which is the JEE!

For inclusive growth, the Government should increase funding of the
Universities and let the IITs do what they have been doing best.

I wish to request the IITs to release a public white paper for a ten year period on the (1) Total number of graduates passed out from each IIT,(2) how many have been employed (3) Their initial salary packages? and (4)How many have made it to top positions?

I am baffled by the manner in which you have defended the case for a
Common Entrance Test. The arguments are completely devoid of logic. I
can write a comment as long as your article but here are some key
points:

1. First you give a quote “anyone can create an education system
where a few at the top succeed” which means that you agree that JEE
successfully filters the top students. And in the next paragraph you
say "They [A significant proportion of students] just do not have the
aptitude for engineering work."

2. You say that the JEE format is "ideally suited for coaching
classes, condemning young boys and girls to a concentration camp
atmosphere for two years or so." How is that in any way a criticism of
JEE? JEE just evaluates your aptitude and knowledge in PCM, how the
students go about acquiring them is out of their control.

3. "[IITs should] start taking pride in the MTech and PhD programmes."
How is this even related?

I think now with opening of more IITS the standard is diluted now. In India there is no genuine research in any field and no innovation has taken place in any of the IITs. In U.S also many famous universities follow the procedure of not recruiting their own PhDs as faculty members. In U.S many Ph.Ds in Physics are pursuing their career in Wall Street and it is the individual' choice.

I agree with the author on the part that we need to create an education system which is focused on engineering research work output of IITs and not on how much the salary its students are going to get after graduation.Good reasearch work is crucial in developing indigenous technologies.It helps in boosting the economy by saving crores of rupees spent to importing foriegn technologies.We need to create an education system which encourages innovation, originality and entrepreneurial skills.At the same time student entering IITs should have the prerogative to decide their own career choice.Many world class research universities have their student take completely different career paths.

While there may be a need to revamp the current IIT selection process, unless there is a uniformity on the level of education of different School boards the new test pattern may not,in true sense, be able to provide right candidates for the IITs.

This is definitely a nice write up and it has tried to explore the issue from various angles. Any way the present procedure followed for IIT entrance is age old and we had this procedure for several decades and a re-look at the methodology is long over due. I think selecting students into iit only based on one test is some where inaccurate and erroneous. It must have some other components too like 12th standard grades or even cumulative records at school. Note that the environment in which we live now is drastically different from the times when the IIT'S were created and any change or modification of procedures will only do good and the IIT faculty themselves can see that the new system will engender right kind of students vis-a-vis the modern day world.

As a graduate of IIT Delhi myself, I feel that the real reason why brilliant students even being selected after JEE lose interest is because of the present academic curriculum of IITs. There is no room for innovation, learning new subjects and the courses are still taught in a boring way. JEE is(was) indeed a good selection procedure and should be continued in a format which is decide by IITs without the interruption of MHRD.

Thank you Mr Dinesh. You just reflected my thoughts. The reason that
almost many universities in USA and Europe are in the top are only 1/4th
due to their good under grad program. Almost 3/4 th of university
assessment comes from their graduate and PhD programs. Research is the
most important criteria that IITs have to focus today or for that matter
any other universities too.
But we also have to consider that India has too much shortage of Faculty
at Graduate and Research levels and plan the in take of students
accordingly.

I agree to some extent with the idea behind this article. But many practical problems have not been considered. I mean c'mon, how can you ask for high school examination marks to be a criteria in India- where we have a variety of boards, ICSE/ISC, SSC/HSC, CBSE, Anglo-Indian, Matriculation, etc. Each board has a different system of evaluation, different subjects, a different style of marking..in this scenario..how can students from so many different backgrounds be treated equally? In China..this is not the case. They have a uniform system prevailing through out the country. All the kids get the same quality of education. In India this is not so, not to mention we have other issues like reservation contaminating the education system. The whole thing has been politicized. If you want the finishing line to be the same for all, the starting line should too...only then can we say that the race was conducted in all fairness.

Apparently the author and many in the HRD ministry do not read newspapers on a regular
basis. Every year there are reports of various malpractices in board exams in different parts
of the country. How much credibility can be given to the marks obtained in such exams?
The current JEE may not be perfect but it has stood the test of time unblemished for half a
century. If the author wants to improve the education system, he could start with the
plethora of board exams across the country that destroy whatever innovative spirit is left in
the students.

As a class 12 passout who has faced the brunt of the narrow minded
education symtem, I totally agree with the fact pointed out by Mr
Dinesh Mohan that the 2 years of class 11 and 12 are meant for
students to explore their areas of interests and identify their
aptitude.But manyatimes students like me who are not even remotely
interested in engineering succumb to parental pressure and join
coaching institutes with the sole aim of getting the 'IIT stamp'.
While 2 years of 'concentration camp' like training might lead to a
student's selection but the very purpose of conducting the examination
is defeated as the student lacking genuine interest in engineering are
selected.Discarding current IITJEE is a right step in the
direction.But the surety of the proposed JEE to fulfill the mentioned
objectives cannot be guaranteed. Hence a system of examination wherein
genuine aptitude is examined will be welcoming as it would also
decrease student's dependence on the ever increasing coaching

Excellent article which has dealt with all the sides of the present
stand off.In my opinion Mr.Kapil Sibal is trying his level best to bring
in certain amount of parity among the aspiring students by weightage to
their Class 12 exams.

When the resolution was passed where were these respected Professors who
are now raising a dissent now.

I wrote my class 12 boards and IIT-JEE 4 years ago and I can tell you one thing for sure. IITJEE does test concepts and clarity of thought very very accurately. I can safley say that it is the only truly creative exam. The board exams ( CBSE) on the other hand was a complete sham. It was all to rote predictive and did not in ANY way encourage original thinking. In fact the schools used to drill us into memorizing proofs and making us do things as mentioned in the text book. The board exams in no way encourages true learning. I can even go as far and say, that conducting board exams are a waste of the nation's resources.

Summarizing, JEE coaching is not what it seems like on the surface. JEE coaching is an outlet for original math and science thinking in the rigid nboard exam world. JEE Coaching teaches creativity, the type the board exams are designed to kill. So please do not destroy the country's creative talent by killing JEE.

JEE should be terminated. Many of the excellent students are not showing
interest in IITs for various reasons. Performance versus Coaching class
based performance is in comparison here. Think what is better. It is
time to start afresh.

IIT alumnis may disagree with his view, a very good perspective from the author. IITs should be an elite institute and not an elitist institute. All those who come out of IIT are not super duper. I myself worked with some of the IITians, I found them wanting in critical areas. They were able to hardly put together two sentences in English. They complete B.Tech in Industrial Engineering and end up working as Accounts Payable consultants for IT companies. In many cases its clear that they get into IITs just to get stamped and pursue their interests later. IITs are living in denial and they should recognize their responsibility and work with Government to model a better test and not turn their backs to millions of Indians. They should contribute to improving engineering education throught the country and not just in IITs. By trying to be a exclusive club, IITs will only spell their own doom in long run.

I do not agree with the author on many points. Firstly the
"concentration camps" he refers to, don't you realize that thousands of
students from smaller towns attend such "camps" ? Don't you see that
these students would otherwise have no access to a reputed
college(unless they attend coaching classes and crack JEE or any other
competitive exam)? Don't you see that they cannot afford to spend their
time "exploring their interest and aptitude"? You talk about elite
questions. But you are the one with the elitist mentality here.

The point raised by the author is completely logic and unbiased.
However, I disagree with last two lines. The proposed form of JEE by
MHRD is not a solution to the problems being faced.

You are true. Many students after coming to IIT through the current
JEE later find that they don't have interest in their departments. But
this problem can be addressed by making changes in JEE.

Students in their 12th don't know anything about various deptts. I
think the JEE should be held department wise. If you want to study
CSE, then there should be a section of Computer Sc. (apart from Phy,
Chem & Maths) in JEE (every school teaches Computer Sc. in secondary &
higher secondary stage). Similarly if you want to study Mechanical
engg, there should be a paper which tests the preliminary knowledge of
what one studies in ME. The students should apply for specific
departments (one or more). This way a student can decide which stream
he should opt according to his/her interest.

Marks are allotted in 10th and 12th based only on memory of the student.
They provide no help in any high achiever's life. If at all they should
be taken into account, only the maths and science marks should be taken
into account. You can't force Srinivasa Ramanjun to excel in languages
for a seat in mathematics degree.

I feel including 12std marks would be a disaster. Already our 12 std kids are pressurised to make a good grade, inclusion here would put IIT's beyond the reach of hopefuls. It would only add more pressure and drive up depression and suicide rates amongs kids.
Secondly, as the author rightly points many students already decide that they would not take Engineering as their carrer, and they just want 'IIT' stamp. I have seen many of students do the IIT+IIM combo and sit in investment banking. If management studies is the aim then why at all do an engineering course ? It would be worthwile if a new test is developed which helps in identifying out these anolomies.

some contradictions in the article..in the begining it favours more debate but in the conclusion it passes judgement in favour of new pattern..it talks about equity while ignoring the fact that rural aspirants will be at disadvantage because of substandard schooling..and i dont understand how a quant exam would test scientific/engineering aptitude..also the author does not explain how the new pattern is broadening the definition of intelligence..

Please respect what IITs have done. They have given you the spirit that you share with the world as a techonologically forward country. Trying to bring all the institutions those are not even at 1% standard compared to IITs and IISc.

Bring the whole system marching towards these institus standards if possible. Not the otherway to degrade them.

IITS are technical institute not universities. So they won't make into
the universities list which offer Humanities, Arts,Medicals, Social
subjects.

There is nothing wrong with JEE or IIT. The biggest fault is India's
primary and secondary education system , which produces students which
become junk students by the time they reach high school level.

Govt. is trying to blame IIT for its inability to have 100% literacy
levels and decent primary education system.

See that's the problem with us. We see only gold and don' want to
shine the iron.....
We are thinking only 5 thousand students (general category)are
responsible for overall development of country.
and by selecting them by this way or that way will do good ...
we are adding reservation politics and every thing but are not ready
to look to standard of study in primary and inter colleges.
Why don't we try to develop such a system by which parents and
teachers are equally responsible for child performance .....
But we no we want so just show our concerns and actually don't want to
do anything....Bur we need to understand for a stable solution we need
to take big useful step...by trying to beak and fold existing system
will only worsen the condition and merely improve it....

As one who has been to IIT and abroad, let me offer a few comments:

1) While JEE success requires a lot of preparation, this is not in vain. Engineering is
complex and the high level of students allows courses to be paced faster. Contrast
this to the US, where you get PGs who have trouble with elementary math!

2) No matter what your caste or state, you can say you made it through JEE and
don't have anyone doubting your ability either at IIT or later.

3) We need to provide good education to all and not just select a few, but this has
to start at primary school. The RTE act if properly implemented would be a start.

4) Pisa tests are like any other test and schools which explicitly prepare students
for these fare better. Chinese students get great marks on GRE but have terrible
English skills! So, please not another rat race now! This so-called rationalization of
education systems based on flipcharts and graphs only benefits the bureaucrats,
not students, not teachers!

As pointed out in many of comments, proposed model of entrance exam doesn't solve any of the issues mentioned in the article. Moreover, I think author needs to do more research by himself and visit some of the IITs.
All of the top IITs have been trying to improve there research and constantly improving their curriculum, accordingly. IIT Kharagpur started a Technology Transfer Fest few years ago where various industries, and students and professors of the institute come together to identify relevant research areas and new initiatives, apart from showcasing the existing ongoing research. Also, the annual income these institutes have been obtaining through sponsored research and industrial consultancy has been increasing rapidly. Needless to say, that IITs are well aware of importance of research and requirements for establishing themselves as world class institutes.
Lastly, please check your facts with how many successful entrepreneurs IITs have produced over the years.

On the issue of Class XII marks, I think it would be vastly unfair to
include them per se, and with such great weight. Across boards the
marking standards vary and so it would require a very minute
normalization process to the Class XII marks to ensure justice to the
students. Again, Class XII marks vary from institution to institution,
in terms of practical marks and also in terms of the examiners'
mentality. After the top 50 or 100 I think it would start to fall
apart. What might be done, if the HRD ministry can bring it about,
would be to introduce weekly or bi-weekly class tests (small 15-20
marks tests) in all schools that will be marked like the boards are. A
pool of head examiners with excellent credentials should supervise the
marking so that any human error in the awarding of marks can be ironed
out. THOSE marks should be added as a percentage to the IIT entrance
marks. That would be a boon to the hardworking students who always
keep up and have the ability to keep up

1. I dont think inter marks are a good criterion, previously
admissions in BITS was based on inter marks and it is a consensus that
the quality has improved after the introduction of BITSAT.

2.The rankings he showed and the constant "glorification" of china,
China spends 5 times more on research than india .China has the second
largest spending india is 8th.

3. create new systems that can accommodate all
mindsets both creative learners also slow learners.

As a recent 12 pass-out and as a recent failure at cracking the IIT-
JEE I think that this entire talk about "concepts" and "concept-based
questions" as being some elite set of questions that screen out only
the best is by and large a farce. If you study the physics syllabus
closely, for example, you will see that the only "concepts" are
Newton's laws, conservation of energy, the first few pages of
geometrical optics and of electronics and magnetism. All the other
chapters are basically a clump of facts to be memorized and those
facts utilized properly in the context of the few basics. Even modern
physics is only a mess of descriptive paragraphs and a few formulae
for numericals. Therefore the MCQ based paper is, I think, the best
way to screen suitable candidates. A written paper would be a waste of
resources, since I do not think it would be any different from the MCQ
unless the entire answers are thoroughly scrutinized by quality
teachers. And that is a pretty big ask.

Very poor research done to write the article. Dont fix something which is not broken.
Most of the arguments do not get fixed even with the new format. The new format
introduces lot of ambiguity. Anyone who has given the state board will know how
poorly they judge the intelligence and caliber of 'pupils'. Reform the board
examination (course across different boards, paper setting, conduction of exams in
school, paper checking) then I might support the system.

Well written article with some interesting points....But first and
foremost the strength of the IIT system has been its ability to skim
out students on the basis of meritocracy alone...This shall change
with the introduction of Board marks making it highly suseptible to
undue interference and influence...What you and some others have
pointed out regarding students not being interested in engineering,
well I would blame societal attitudes and the current job market and
not the JEE...moreover dont we have brilliant engineers and physicists
and mathematicians from prestigious foreign universities joining
finance?...We need to ensure other subjects be it arts or the sciences
get the respect they deserve and society has to play this
role....Again the rankings you mentioned are kind of skewed as IIT's
are only technological institutes and not Universities in the strictest
sense.

While I agree that IITs are not the ivy league institutes in the world for research yet it is well known fact that top professors in the best of universities abroad always prefer IIT undergrads as their PhD students. The point I am trying to make is, although IITs are not best research universities, their students sure do make best of researchers albeit in universities abroad. This immense amount of faith in its students comes from the selection criteria adopted by IITs over the years. Best of the researchers in the world know how tough it is to get into an IIT and I would never like to lose that faith by diluting the exam by considering completely rubbish board exams.
I agree that IITs need to up their ante in MTech and PhD programs so that these programs are well respected through out the world. But please dont tell me that all the undergrads entering the IIT need to focus on technology and research, it is precisely for that reason the program is called undergrad.

There are two ways to bring equality either you upgrade lower part to higher one or the reverse. The author seems to have interest in later one. If you want that only those who are really interested in engineering should go to IITs, then it required to give others chances in other areas. Its the time, Indian Govt. should invest more money to basic and social sciences. Also, it is required to ensure a master degree in literature should have opportunity to have good job.

.. JEE model is outmoded. The candidates selected are trained like
parrots to solve the type of problems & questions likely to be asked
in JEE . I could call the coaching institutes in Andhra as factories
manufacturing candidates for IITs. But from my own experience and that
of the Professors in such elite institutes ,the students in IITs are
of poor quality and they lack original thinking .Our ISRO and Atomic
Research Centers have wonderful Scientists and technocrats. Hardly you
can find IIT-ins in such organisations as most of them are from our Universities .In my opinion ,State Boards Grades should be given
weightage in selection of candidates for IITs

The reason for the reputation that IITs has today, is due to the
quality of students getting into it plus the quality of professor out
there. Inclusion of board marks will highly degrade the quality of
students that will get in. Also I have seen in my own time that many
students had scored more than 90% in 12 boards but still were not
able make it to IITs. This implies the fact that 12th board as solely
based on rote learning, while JEE involves application of concepts.
Thus including board marks doesn't seem logical, which too vary across
different boards. Thus rather than degrading the reputation of IITs
one should better work on improving the education system with
something similar that IITs are based on i.e application of concepts.
Once this is done properly, one will not have to talk about boards and
IITs seperately, but this will further improve the quality of students
getting in.
STUDENT - 3RD YEAR FROM IIT DELHI

The article makes so much sense ! In 2003, I had to write a dozen of
entrance exams - AIEE,IIT-JEE besides my board exams. It does not
make sense to have so many exams.A common entrance is the need of the
hour. Let the next generation atleast not be subjected to mental torture
!!

Even MHRD proposal will only degrade the performance of IIT with respect to International education system. even there is blemish in IIT selection procedure, but MHRD is not improved solution.

Very sensible article. Professor Mohan knows what he's saying. And his views are balanced and originating from first principles, and seemingly not from bias, personal or otherwise. Hopefully, like-minded people will take the right decision in this regard, and not let politics or anti-changers decide.

Current JEE considers skills and aptitude of candidates in Maths,
Chemistry and Physics and new CET will includes contribution in score
from subjects like history, civics, geography, hindi, sinskrit,etc.If
you say current JEE doesn't bring students with engineering interest how
could you even expect new CET as better filter for engineering
aptitude???

Being an IITian i'm really surprised to read thoughts of author mainly
because-
Instead of blaming students entering IITs for not having aptitude to
achieve further excellence in engineering, IITs need to introspect
themselves
1.If you look at how they conduct Basic Maths and sciences courses at
IIT you won't believe it's IIT....The lab courses have same misery, i
found labs at MIT kothrud, Pune.
2.Look at companies they invite and give preferences for jobs, most
heavily paying belong to Consult, Banking, Finance sectors instead of
technical core.
3.Look at events happening over campus and money spent, most of them
promote students to indulge in Cultural, sports and other activities
and not technical.
So Sir its condition of IITs that changes attitude of student with
engineering capabilities towards non-technical sector.

Author is contradicting his own statement. At one point he is talking about innovation and at other point he is talking about the ideal test to include high school performance. can one ensure that high marks in 10th or 12th leads to innovation? Our present system of learning is dependent on rote learning and getting marks...

IIT alumni would know the shortfalls of the current selection system (if any). Why does the government try to poke its nose into everything

Multiple selection procedures may be good from some view.If a good student misses one,he will get another chance to do better in another test.

I completely agree with you, Mr. Mohan. Good points made.
Not sure why everyone scoffs at high-school grades/marks... if high-
school performance is considered such a waste of time, why is everyone
desperate to get into the "best schools", and how come more people
aren't home-schooled then?!
Time to do away with the JEE - take a leaf out of the book of SATs -
they're used (among other indicators) for both Ivy League as well as
obscure colleges. And yet, I don't see the Ivy Leaguers howling away
for a separate, special exam etc.
A couple of suggestions to reduce the pressure on kids:
1) Adopt a single entrance exam, but with multiple attempts. (like the
way the GRE is, for instance). Maybe 3 attempts over a 2 month time-
window. This would help those who end up missing/underperforming in
the exam due to circumstances like illness etc.
2) Allow semester-based admissions (every 6 months), instead of
annual.
3) Improve valuation at the high-school level. It IS rather error-
prone as of now.

@Ayyappa: Very few critics have come out your type of excellent
analysis, hitting at the very root of the problem. Present method
encourages the students to some how manage and get in to IIT and it
is difficult to not succeed academically there after with little
efforts. We only keep hearing of few we have made a name for
themselves after a stint PG in American universities as against the
vast majority of also ran IITians. It is understood that
organization like Atomic Energy Commission take care to avoid
recruits from IIT instead concentrate on excellent second tier
institutions for induction and the strategy has paid handsome dividends.

The article itself is very paradoxical. 1) The author says that,
students,Instead of spending their time in coaching classes(they)
"should spend exploring their interest and aptitudes". 2) But at the
end the author concludes that JEE should encapsulate Higher secondary
marks & the present JEE must be scrapped. But scrapping the present
JEE & including Higher secondary marks will just add fuel to fire. It
wont ease the pressure on students and it contradicts his whole line
of thought.
As a recent college grad(a non IITian), I must say the approaches for
JEE and Higher secondary exams are totally different. These shouldn't
be mixed.An Unequivocal solution is not just combining these two.

"The future of IITs does not depend on the selection process of
undergraduates. No matter what process is adopted they will do well."

Do you want to think again about the above statement? It's quite
common knowledge that the quality of students graduating from IITs has
already deteriorated in the past decade, and that is solely due to the
changes made to the JEE format. With the proposed changes, I think
it's going to be even worse. Regarding the quality of research work, I
think the problem is elsewhere - like the inability to retain and
motivate the BTech students!

I cannot agree more with the propositions of this article. Modern JEE and the prestige associated with IITs are engendering a kind of telent theft where real engineering minds choose not to join the 'concentration camps' and where many IITians are interested in anything but not in engineering.
I think IITs should rather concentrate on post graduate and doctral studies.

I do not understand why everyone in this country tries to compete with out neighbour china. In the current scenarion we lack far behind from china in every aspect be it health, education , economy,manufacturing or service quality. The problem with this comparison is that china works in a different way , there is no possibility of dissent. Even articles like this will scrutinized in china.

Secondly , the author is comparing the Quality of the institution in various rankings and to that of other countries to the rankings of IIT's and misreading/misrepresenting the outcome of these rankings. The presence of the IIT's 3 out of the top 7 is indicative of the fact that they are infact doing well and the lack of other such autonomous institutions in india.

The funtioning of the educational institutions should be left to the academics and no interference from the govt should be allowed .

This govt has spoilt almost everything else , please do not touch the IIT's.

The author talks of ranking based on the number of research papers
produced by an institute. But if you go deep, you will find that by
going for quantity-race, they have diluted the quality of the research.
It is for good, that we do not publish unless it is really worth it.

The author while being a IIT-D faculty has missed a crucial point - of corruption within India, and the Indian educational system.

The state boards today have no control mechanism to ensure fairness in marking. Rampant corruption in state education boards will mean that many an undeserving candidates with money to buy off a few corrupt teachers will be able to get through into IIT. The charm of the IIT examination always has been that it was "fair" - it did not matter if my father knew/ did not know anyone in a position of strength - the only thing that mattered was "my" performance in that exam. You take that away - you kill the IITs.

Also, the author seems to forget that the absence of Indian institutes featuring in the top universities of the world has nothing to do with the IIT exam. It is because the institutes do not have enough resources to facilitate research (quality of labs is much worse than the US where most of these students find admission for masters and doctorates)

Dr. Mohan,
On one hand, I do agree with your problem diagnosis in part. IITs need to have a strong post-grad program. We need better research going on in there. But post-grad research has nothing to do with undergrads wanting or not wanting to do research. Additionally, do have a look at the numbers of IITians (B.Tech holders) who go for graduate degrees (research), not to IITs but abroad. This suggests that there is a problem inside IIT as far as research environment is concerned. This CANNOT be solved by changing the entrance criterion!!!

As for the move suggested by the Hon. MHRD, a common entrance test for the country leads to dilution of entrance standards for a specific reason. Any test can only successfully test and grade a section of and not the whole bell curve. The smaller the section is, the more accurate the ranking system gathered. If IITs need to rank the top 10% students, an exam oriented towards top 50-60% just won't work as large numbers would have same scores.

You have come to a wrong conclusion based on a totally different premise. We know that there should be a change in the way "really interested students" should enter the IITs.
But the whole point is, will the process suggested by MHRD do even a bit good in that direction?
Half the weightage carrying Common test, will be continued to be topped by similar students as before, if you don't understand please go and check the top 500 ranks of JEE and AIEEE, they'll only be a super imposition of each other. So, we can conclude that even this common test, is not having anything new that will bring REALLY interested candidates.
Secondly, check the toppers of HSC, those kids aren't the one Actually Interested in Engineering, they are those who have been made to believe by our society that Excelling in exams is the only way to get success in life.
The kind of students that you want to bring to IITs, are the ones securing 70-80% in exams and lower ranks in entrance. will u admit them?

I would like to raise certain points here. As I have realized
many IIT undergraduates are not taught the way they should be.
The faculty is not able to generate any kind of interest in the
students in their respective branches. I heard this from one of
the HOD's in the Management department of one of the IITs that
only 10% on the teachers in here are excellent, rest 70 % are
just average and the rest 20% are better not said. Plus how can
one ignore the fact the it is only the Computer Science graduates
that retain their field because of the availability of high -
paying jobs in this sector. Rest all other branches,Chemical,
Mechanical or Electrical have an extreme dearth of good jobs.
Metallurgy and Civil remains best forgotten. Why would one then
go for a core engineering job when its not paying him /her well?
An IIT undergrad is then bound to look for better options. It is
just the superficial picture that undergraduate students at IITs
are not interested in engineering.

What does the author suppose a student must be apt in apart from mathematical prowess to be a good engineer? Is it even possible to devise an examination to test that ability or aptitude? I hope the author realizes that if we somehow select only the students who are genuinely interested in engineering we'll end up producing far less engineers than our nation needs. Is he aware of the really few choices a student has after +2?

I believe that mathematical prowess of a student is the best available metric to assess their logical and anlytical ability after higher secondary level. People with brains are good at maths and memorizing stuff.

Higher education like MTech and PhD in India is a big joke and is likely to remain so for centuries to come. I personally know students pursuing such courses and I can certify that they're here only because they failed to secure admission in colleges abroad and their entire academic ability consists of copying stuff from books and the internet.

"The attendances at meetings where these dissenting resolutions have been passed have been a small proportion of faculty strength of these institutions. It is clear that views are divided among the IIT faculty members across the country."
Please check your facts. The IITK Senate meeting was attended by 200 faculty which is 90% of total faculty stregth.

A very well written piece indeed. I have a few comments to make
though:

1. Is it really possible to create an entrance test, or for that
matter, any entrance procedure which will ensure selecting students
who are indeed interested in an engineering career. More importantly,
how many of us really know at 17, what we want to do for a living? Is
it then not unfair to expect students to continue an engineering
career only because they chose to enter an IIT?

2. Coaching classes probably will never go away. No matter how
ingenious one might be in creating an entrance test, there will be a
brute force practice method to clear the test.

3. I do agree that there should be more focus on the research work -
both quality and quantity coming out of the IITs

The author is so far from the truth. The whole point of IIT is to select the best students and give them the best possible Engineering Education. And before 2006, the concept of prelims and mains format was based on testing the amplitude of students. since then the quality has gone down hill!!!

Kapil Sibal is just trying to ruin a system which has worked so well....

There is a bigger question here which is not yet answered.

As an IIT graduate (B.Tech), I have the pleasure of being closely connected to IITs. I also have the pleasure of being closely associated with graduates of MIT, Stanford, Berkeley - and Ivy league institutions from Germany (TU-Berlin), France(Nantes) and China (Tsinghua). I am always amazed how closely students of such top schools are similar in their attitudes - very distinctly different from other schools.

Most of them are doing what I consider ordinary jobs, have regular family life, and live day-to-day events indistinguishable from others who have not been to Ivy league schools.

So, makes me wonder, why have Ivy leagues in the first place?

If you are still tied to the Napoleonic doctrine of "finding" the smartest kids (JEE or otherwise), giving them the "best" education and expecting them to solve the nation's pressing problems - this will be very disappointing. Arguing about JEE will not answer this question.

what kind of reasoning is this? Some percentage of IITians are not interested in
Engineering. And if you change the entrance exam, you will get the interested breed
in Engineering?? E-stupido we call it - Iit guwahatian.

Nice and balanced commentary about the topic. And cann't agree more with author's view. Just for FYI - Stanford or MIT do not conduct their own exams.

I agree with Mukesh, which is exactly my point too. High school grading is not fair and standard in many states including mine (Tamil Nadu). Here a student can easily score high marks if he can replicate the text-book verbatim in his answer sheet without giving it any thought. JEE/CBSE is different in that they encourage the students to apply their thought.

If we include high school marks for IIT then its quality is just going to go down. It'll become just another engineering college in the country which just takes in students and sends them out as degree holders without them really learning anything.

Some time ago, Prof Yashpal's report on improving college education was published by Hindu. This included a lot of practical ideas for improvement - including 50% papers based on solving problems in 30/50 Km radius etc. Freedom of course selection - like majority from specific degree courses and rest from various other disciplines (like arts, etc). This would out more creative professionals.

It also issues facing UGC, deemed univs etc.

You're not getting the point, inclusion of high school marks is a big blunder. The valuation scheme at high school level is very error prone. I don't oppose a common entrance test but the idea of including high school marks is not recommended.

Dear Mr. Dinesh,

True and factual article but lets first have the infrastructure developed for arts and other studies and then lets discuss this. Also, as a matter of fact, scholars entering into IIT are smart enough to make their career decisions. And as u said correctly, no matter put them anywhere and they will come out with flying colors. IIT's do allow students to nuture their personal traits and hobbies


There are very less premeir institutes in India for quality education and let us try not to downgrade the standards for the same.

Hope you agree to this!!

Hotchpotch kind of article...

I do not agree that IITJEE should be replaced with the JEE
proposed by MHRD because IITs are not ranked very high in
university rankings. In fact, I think that the quality of
students would go down if the MHRD proposal goes through and that
is certainly not a good thing. There is nothing wrong in
selecting the best students through a test that helps identify
good students. Of course, a good institution should not solely
depend on the mental faculty of the students and should try its
best to improve the research opportunities. But accepting the
MHRD proposal is not going to help, perhaps will only make it
worse.

Students who are good at scoring in board exams need not have
more aptitude in engineering than students who are at maths,
physics and chemistry. Engineering requires a solid background in
sciences.

IITJEE, since many decades, has been the only entrance exam that
consistently and thoroughly checks the understanding of concepts.
It is time to make it better and not scrap it.

Dear Dr Mohan

Your problem diagnosis is quite good, IITs indeed need to develop
strong PG and research programmes and that the entrance tests must not
require students to prepare so much for just one exam so that their
other aptitudes are lost: after all what are we testing? However, your
suggestion to follow MHRD's plan also does not offer any change, per
say. In fact, MHRD's plan is worse, it takes away another opportunity
from any student to take one more exam. If in this one exam, for some
reasons, the student fails to do well, he/she would be done for this
life! Disaster.

Ideally we should have simple SAT like exams based on 10th syllabus
organized 4-5 times a year and students apply to various places
without any common entrance exam and universities select on their own
criteria. The only problem, which is a massive one, is that India has
a huge gap in demand and quality supply which cannot be overcome by
any of these procedures. MHRD should think of it more.

Thanks
Ashish

The professor for "Injury Prevention Programme" is a making a suggestion to blow a fatal injury to the IITs so that they lose their
excellence and die as one of the multitudes of engineering colleges
that produces half baked engineers.
It is really surprising that Dinesh Mohan feels
"The future of IITs does not depend on the selection process of
undergraduates. No matter what process is adopted they will do well.
IITs excel only because of the quality of students inducted. Value
addition by IITs is not very great compared to many other institutions
like NITs.
IITs excel only because of the quality of their in take of students

The present system of JEE is forcing students to go through intensive coaching. I dont know what percentage of those coached students finally make it into IIT. Are we sure the best students of India is getting into IIT? What about those brilliant students who are not even aware of such coaching centres and even the existance of IIT JEE? If we can have a common selection test for civil service why not for engineering studies including IIT? We should not miss the gems in villages and towns. We need to give students the time and opportunity to study and understand the subjects. Then we should test them for their subject understanding and critical thinking ability. Creating a tough exam and testing students on topics which is not even taught in the plus two level will create some elites, who could afford the coaching class. Good educational institutes should find talented raw gems and cut them to perfection. We need to debate and find a better method based on expert's opinion.

A truly well thought out, argued and refreshing piece coming from a
veteran in the war zone.

regarding research at IITs, I honestly don't understand the
co-relation between including 12th class marks for JEE and these
students raring to go for research after JEE. The solution again is
for the IITs to collaborate with global companies and academic
institutes to spur innovation and make it a lucrative option for
students to take it up. Given the salary parity that exists between
research and industry, does the ministry really expect that those
students who are selected using the state boards will fall over each
other to do research?? again a flawed answer to a relevant question.

The solution therefore does not lie in changing the JEE but changing
the system after JEE to make it attractive for students to stay in
science or do research.
One last question I would like to ask all who support the new system
including the author of this article, is have you taken the JEE and
come out successfully? You must have heard of sour grapes then.

The JEE exam identifies laser-like, the top talent from hundreds of thousands of candidates and the students thus selected have proved to be the best in the world – there is little dispute there. I concede, any other school will probably will do equally well if they are presented with this set of candidates. But no! Other schools accept students based on high school grades, their own entrance exams, donations, recommendations, quotas etc. ; they are far behind the IITs. The cold clinical approach of the JEE makes the IITs what they are – the best in the world. Yes, Chinese have better technology schools; that just means that IITs must invest heavily in the ME and PhD programs; it does not mean they should open the flood gates to B. Tech. via Janata admissions. JEE does not hinder path breaking work. We are talking about 10th graders – not Post-Docs. Fact: high schoolers do great with math and science fundamentals. IITs change the JEE at their peril.

It is time to evaluate the "success" of IITs from the perspective of its mission, if there is any mission,that was set in the early years of 1950s! It is rightly pointed out that the faculty of IITs shines from the reflected glory of IIT undergrads only, the faculty of any IIT is undistinguishable by any other means from any other engineering faculty of other universities/institutes, be it quality of teaching or in imparting research oriented curriculum/education,or its own quality research papers. IITs have largely produced "technocrats" or "techno-Administrators" , primiarily for private sectors, some of them used to be in older days MNCs or British MNCs.
It is time to leave IIT as IITs and focus on IISERs. I will ask IISERS to conduct periodic tests among schools students from 9th std onwards to find out talented students (like talent scouting rather than JEE, but KVPY,JBNSTS,NTSE) who will be a REAL scientist or engineer that can meet our space programmes or DRDO programmes

While the article talks of what the flaws are with the JEE, it doesnt
talk about why the system proposed by MHRD is correct.

JEE has proven to be a world-class system by churning out world
respected entrepreneurs whereas there is no clear evidence as to
whether state toppers have done well in their chosen domains. There is
not much credibility to the state board as they are known to be
liberal with their marking system. I remember when i was taking my
state board exam, the common notion was that there would be a set of
problems that would be repeated and if you are ready with little
variations of it, you are set for the exam. This certainly does not
smack of aptitude for engineering!
Secondly, Kapil sibal wants english to be tested and made an important
part of the JEE. This is flawed because knowing english does not co-
relate to a person's knowledge of science and mathematics. This can be
corrected by having a developmental program after getting admission to
IIT.

It is fascinating that the author worries about straight jacketing high-school students. But isnt it a fact of life starting from kindergarten? How can these students start exploring liberal arts and science with open mind in high school and beyond. My 7 year old son studies in the much maligned education system in US. Other day he came home with a book neatly bound with very attractive cover. He was ecstatic that he had authored a book and published and got excellent reviews. It all happened during his second grade classroom with the help of teaching staff in the school. Though it never made it out of school (except to my house), and the content was appropriate for his age, it was the fact that he was encouraged to freely think outside the walls of the classroom for topic and ideas and express them in his own words. That is where the future Steve Jobs or John Nash will come from, not from the rote memory system of Indian education.

Coming to India from USA; "Only the talented will Survive in a Job"

The author raises some very good issues and I agree with all of them.
However, I fail to realize how giving higher weightage to high-school
marks is going to solve any of the mentioned issues. In fact, it will
only worsen them. It is well known that most board exams are based on
rote, and pay little emphasis on creativity. At least the JEE is a
creative exam. Moreover, how can we hope to normalize two boards, one
of which gives student greater than 99 % to a large percentage of its
students, and in the other, if you get 75 %, you are the topper. I
hope this normalization does not follow the BITS Pilani procedure,
which led to a lot of students from the states that awarded such high
percentages filling up this institute, at the cost of talent.

I noted these sentiments

----the “resilience” of pupils despite tough backgrounds, and the “high levels of equity” between rich and poor pupils
It would have to be free from language and class biases.

Can we truly design aptitude tests free from language, class and socioeconomic bias?

Agree with your views on IIT transformation but discarding JEE is utter rubbish. The current JEE pattern is indeed one of the best examination pattern that IITs have come up with. It aptly determines a student's logical ability and doesn't focus on cramming as is the case with school board exams.
One exam will put even more burden on students than multiple exams. Just one bad day and it will kill a student's aspirations. Whereas in the current format, students have multiple chances to secure a good seat in a reputed college through either JEE or AIEEE. Hats off to IITs for stubbornly opposing the new pattern.

Kapil Sibbal's horrible decisions are killing the education system in India. He is constantly hitting his bow into the wrong region.

The article presents a holistic view towards entrance exam module for
IITs. The argument is sound that if you choose 'only' good students
they will do well irrespective of the entrance mode. The challenge
lies in other institutions like Universities where education standard
is falling like never before. A graduate struggles in writing a proper
paragraph in English in exams. So the challenge is to identifying the
methods to improve the so called 'Human resource' in general. The
situation of research is worst in Universities in India compared to
global standards. The best institutions of the world are the
Universities. Time has come for us to identify the real challenge not
the mirage of IITs only. Better we wake up from this slumber.

I thank the author for a clear comment on the ongoing JEE system of IITs.
Particularly, "Within a decade IITs will have little to show for as academic
institutions unless policymakers and faculty members start taking pride in the
MTech and PhD programmes. It is worth remembering that BTechs comprise less
than half of IIT graduates every year. The majority are MTech and PhD degree
holders. " is really a fact to be noted.
I am a PhD from IIT, would like to register my woe at this point. It is a sad and
untold truth that many IITs do not recruit their own PhDs ;the reason being to stop
in-breeding culture. Does it mean that they do not value their own products?
Definitely a revamp is needed and should at the same time stop students being
made vulnerable for multiple IIT exams...as it was before for M.Sc stream.

We take the maxim "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" too
seriously. The 1% inspiration is absolutely necessary to make the 99%
perspiration meaningful.
IIT-JEE tests perspiration, but not inspiration. If there is
inspiration, perspiration will naturally follow and does not have to
be forced (which is what the IIT coaching classes do to the kids).
We have not created world-class researchers just because we do not
look for and augment inspiration in students. The metric of success
in our educational system is too tight for an average student with
dreams of becoming a scientist to raise above the rest and get into
good institutes.
First, we need more good quality institutes to tap these inspired,
but less-prepared kids and make them successful.
Second, we need good leaders in the field of education to infuse inclusiveness in the selection criteria, so as not to exclude people
with lower preparation but full of eagerness and dreams of learning
science.

"If an institution wants to conduct its own test it must be very
different from the current JEE" Very well said and I agree fully. It
makes no sense at all to see coaching classes taking precedence over
formal schooling to focus on JEE alone through years of brute force
coaching and tortuous hard work. Youth we could not make it through
to IIT are psychological wreck though they are nearly as good as the
successful ones. This dismal situation should be brought to an end.
India is a changed place now. The avenues of good educations are
open throughout the world and good education does not necessarily
means engineering studies only. If the changes in the IIT admission
procedures are not brought about now its relevance as premier
institution will be lost forever.

Very very argued. For all the brouhaha over the pattern to follow for
entrance into an IIT, it must be forcefully argued that IITs are non-
entities as far as research and development is concerned. The
fraction of undergraduates passing from IITs and joining national
development through engineering and research is miniscule--indeed a
very large percentage opts for management/financial services. What a
pity that for all the focus on the exam pattern, we are unable to
induct student that are genuinely interested in science and
engineering.

One cannot disagree with the author on the reasons why IITs should do away with JEE in the present form. Also, it reasonable that the new test be conducted by an independent agency. Whatever the mode of test, IITs are guaranteed to attract the best of the best students. Senior IITs should take the lead and formulate ‘bold’ and ‘ambitious’ proposals, involving Industry and IIT alumni, that will make the IITs to be counted among the top 50 in world rankings.

Very naive and disappointing article. Absolutely nothing clear cut in terms of solutions. The current proposal is to have a JEE+ and there will obviously be students who will game this system also. The IITs themselves know all is not well with them and they are more concerned and more capable of resolving the issues themselves than the MHRD babus.

Dr. Dinesh Mohan, you seem to conveniently ignore the above facts and sentiments

1) Why isn't the HRD minister ready to dry run the process once and convince the senates that the proposed changes indeed address the concerns mentioned in Ramaswami Committee report.

2) I have been a student of IIT Kanpur and could share one middle class sentiment of absolute merit of every candidate in IIT which policy makers and politicians conveniently ignore. Inspite of reservations, any student could keep his head high and tell that he is in IIT because of his merit, mainly due to the standard of the exams. I am sure when board exam marks are included this will never be the same due to unfair conduction/evaluation and academicians like you should voice your concerns on this issue.

3) These sudden radical changes being suddenly imposed at a time when our beloved HRD minister wants to bring Foreign Universities in India creates a suspicion among aware citizens of this nation.

Dear Author, You talk about building an education system comparable to that of china, don't you think MHRD should concentrate on NIT's, IIIT's, IISCER's etc, why temper with a system that is in existence for last 50 years. You talk about a system where student should not have to bear any stress. My dear friend, stress is a relative term. You can not quantify strees. Moreover, conducting one test will lead to more stress since the student will only have a one chance. You talk about having social obligations, my dear friend IITs are not a publicly elected body they are engineering institutions, they select students based on the entrance test. The format, type, difficulty level should be decided by the engineering institution not by the government. IITs have made their mark on their own. They should be left as what they are. If government wants to develop something, they can do it by developing ARTS, MUSIC etc so that JEE filtered students do not feel the need to prove their mettle by JEE

The successful business of IIT coaching institutes across the country
says it all: If most of the students who join the coaching centers
could get admissions into IITs, then obviously, IIT-JEE just tests
adequate preparation, and not inherent knowledge and abilities. These
students go on to make more money and have a good life, primarily
using their ability to undertake the arduous tasks without aversion,
even when they don't like what they are doing.
But Indian scientific prowess should rest not on people who can do
insipid things without complaints, but on people who are really
inspired, who dream about their scientific future, are imaginative
etc. There are very few researchers in India who like what they are
doing and enjoy doing it. The reason there are only a few is that the
educational system over-emphasizes hard-work and rote learning and
completely neglects in-depth understanding that will lead to
inspiration and enjoyment.

Excellent article. It is time for IIT to discontinue with JEE. Only
students who go for special coaching are able to crack JEE. High School
marks should also be taken into account.

A nice unbiased article showing all sides of the problem. Any entrance
test that tests only the subject knowledge may not truly select the
most capable students. A lot of times we see critical reasoning,
analytical thinking, verbal expression ability are equally important.
So, a really good test should take all these factors into account.
Also, there are several tests like the National Talent Search
Examination (NTSE), Science and Mathematics olympiads that are proven
measure of a sub-set of the above skills. There should be some
weightage given to success in such tests also.

The author has glossed over the most important objection raised by the opposers of the MhRD proposal. This is against the MHRD's view that it is possible to normalize the board exam scores across the different state boards in way which is fair enough that the percentile rankings so obtained can be given a 50% weight in the final selection procedure.

A little bit of elementary statistics shows how shaky this assumption is. No data has so far been presented to establish that variances in scores across different boards are comparable. Without such data, an scaling process will be prone to severe errors. And this would happen in an examination which, for better or worse, has come to define as a career defining exam for lakhs of youths in our country.

Yes, there are problems with the JEE, as the author points out. The very real danger is that thw MHRD's proposal does not address any of those problems, and adds in a few more.

I agree that the system is able to pick those with the best
capabilities in physics/chem/math, but not necessarily those with a
real aptitude for engineering. I am not sure how a different
unified system of exams will change this. The current situation is
that the recruiters and the students know that those who are from the
top 6 IITs are some of the brightest minds in the country.
Unfortunately, many of the students view this as the ticket to have a
lucrative career and nothing more. It is unfortunate that the best
students end up taking positions as analysts in financial firms. This
needs to change. Given the special place that IITs occupy they
should offer more incentives for the integrated BTEch/MTech programs
which produces students with considerable depth in the engineering
fields.

Agree that IIT selection needs a revamp but the authors reasons do not
make sense. Many students from top universities in USA do not pursue a
career in the same field that they graduated from...not everybody knows
by 12th grade, what they want to do rest of their life. JEE does a very
good job of measuring the aptitude.

On the point that students can succeed by excess coaching (and that is
true for board exams too), then the questions/exams need to be improved
on.

Rather than messing with the existing system, we need to encourage and
create other competitive institutions that go on to become brands by
themselves. This is happening at the school levels. A healthy and fair
competition between institutions will provide more options for students
and also help to improve the quality of education. Instead of adding
more IIT's, govt should encourage parallel franchises (public and
private) in Engg, Medicine , Business, Liberal Arts, etc.

The IIT problem cannot be fixed in isolation. If a few IITs are the
only hope for a nation of billion people, it is a lost cause. Only if
other institutes are fixed, will the unreasonable pressure on the IIT
system ease, and some semblance of normalcy will return. Focusing only
on the IIT system is myopic and lacks perspective. In the US, there
are excellent institutes in each state that provide high quality
education; hence the top schools are not the only hope for students.
Enlarging the picture more, we cannot fix the falling college
education if school education is neglected. Starting from school the
whole things needs a complete overhaul, which is easier said than
done. Endless debates about fixing this or that while losing sight of
the root cause will lead us nowhere. BTW, the Hon'ble Sibal is
meddling with this because he thinks it will fetch them election
points and hence in a hurry to bring in changes, rather than thinking
thro' this carefully. No respite form politicians!

Wonderful! Absolutely clear-headed thinking. The IITs are well-known because of their
undergraduate products and not because of their research output.

I am an alumnus of IIT-Madras with M.Sc.and Ph.D. passed out in 1970. The post graduate
and doctoral programmes are always meted out a step-motherly treatment and all the
fretting and fuming is always about the B.Tech. programme. MIT became well-known
because of Norber Wiener and a Professor G. N. Ramachandran could put the Madras
University on the International Map in a span of twelve years. Even after more than five
decades of existence IITs are yet to reach a level of reputation of, say, IISc, Bangalore.
As the author has rightly put it is high time something is done to attract the genuinely
interested students to the portals of IITS.

Finally an article that talks of the real issue: Research!

IIT's need to produce quality researchers (Phd) and Masters canditates to be able to succeed.

A government which doesn't seem to be competent even to handle matters traditionally falling in its scope now wants to poach on academic matters. Vinaasa kaale vipareetha buddhi, isn't it?

Before just shaming JEE, there are some facts that needs to be
corrected. Firstly JEE doesn't test only mathematical prowess but it
is indeed designed to test a student's aptitude along with concepts of
mathematics, physics, chemistry. As any student who has given JEE and
other engineering entrance exams knows, JEE focus on a students
ability to approach a problem correctly, contrary to other's that just
focus on formulas and solving as many problems as possible in limited
period.
Secondly the reason behind an engineering student pursuing an
alternative career is 'Lack Of Opportunities' in India. As again all
of engineering student will know, there are only few or negligible
opportunities for an engineering field other than Computer Science or
Electrical. A student is forced to take an alternative career.
Thirdly the reason for IIT's been behind is lack of research facility
and funding. A student prefer to do MS and Phd from better off
universities abroad possible not because of JEE.

Would the enlightened author explain how sensible is taking board marks into selection process when they are marred with heterogeniety ,corruption and regional bias?