In the last couple of days, there have been numerous articles in media (Hindustan Times, Business Standard, Indian Express) that IIT JEE and AIEEE will merge into one exam in 2013, that the weight of this exam will not be 100 percent, but 50 or 60 percent, with remaining weight being given to 12th class marks. That there is some formula that has been created for normalizing 12th class marks across all boards.
Media tells us that MHRD officials are very secretive and tightlipped about the details. It also tells us that most IIT Directors are willing to say only little and that too on the condition of anonymity. Apparently there is a meeting of IIT Council on 18th February, where the detailed proposal will be presented and approved, and it will be implemented with admission cycle of 2013 (since admission process for 2012 is already on).
I hope the media is wrong, and all this is just rumor.
While I have been arguing in this blog that there are many things wrong with JEE, and that IITs need to do something about the problem of students not paying attention to the school education, doing changes in such a secretive fashion is likely to create more problems and not solve existing problems. Solutions must be available in public. People should be able to debate those changes and give their feedback. IIT Council, in its wisdom, may ignore that feedback, and decide what it collectively believes is best for IITs (and the society). But not giving anyone a chance to opine is simply not cricket.
Ministry is keen to reduce the number of entrance exams. Is this a real problem. Putting everything in one basket causes stress. A big reason for reforms was to reduce stress. If ministry really wants to reduce stress, it should see to it that entrance exams (including JEE and AIEEE) can be given multiple times till a candidate is satisfied with his/her performance. So more exams and not less are needed to help the student.
Why so much hurry. That is easy to understand. 2014 is the year of general elections. Politicians do not want to do anything which could go wrong and become unpopular just around the election time. And it is not clear how to make moves now so that the Minister after 2014 elections is unable to stop the change. So you can't assume that it will necessarily happen in 2015. So the only option is 2013, even if appears to be somewhat unfair to some students.
If IITs were to considerably change their admission process and allow a 40-50 percent weight to the 12th class marks in 2013, would it not be unfair to someone who will give the 12th class exams in 2012. These students will claim that they spent much more time on the JEE test than the 12th class exams, since the marks in 12th class were not being counted towards admission, but now suddenly they are being told that their 12th class marks will indeed be considered for the admission purpose.
The boards are currently under legal obligation (because of a Supreme Court decision) to announce the 12th class result by 30th June. But that is too late for IIT admission. Will it be possible to ensure that results of every single board is announced by say, 10th June.
The specific questions that I am raising are not important. The important point is that if the process had been transparent, then lots of people would have had the opportunity to raise such questions, and if education sector will not have transparency then where else to expect transparency. I have no doubt in the wisdom of 40-50 wise persons who constitute IIT Council, but I do have doubts whether their combined wisdom is more than the combined wisdom of all other stake holders.
At the end, I am really hoping that media is just indulging in speculation and there is really no such secretive proposal that will be discussed and approved with just an hour of discussion.
Media tells us that MHRD officials are very secretive and tightlipped about the details. It also tells us that most IIT Directors are willing to say only little and that too on the condition of anonymity. Apparently there is a meeting of IIT Council on 18th February, where the detailed proposal will be presented and approved, and it will be implemented with admission cycle of 2013 (since admission process for 2012 is already on).
I hope the media is wrong, and all this is just rumor.
While I have been arguing in this blog that there are many things wrong with JEE, and that IITs need to do something about the problem of students not paying attention to the school education, doing changes in such a secretive fashion is likely to create more problems and not solve existing problems. Solutions must be available in public. People should be able to debate those changes and give their feedback. IIT Council, in its wisdom, may ignore that feedback, and decide what it collectively believes is best for IITs (and the society). But not giving anyone a chance to opine is simply not cricket.
Ministry is keen to reduce the number of entrance exams. Is this a real problem. Putting everything in one basket causes stress. A big reason for reforms was to reduce stress. If ministry really wants to reduce stress, it should see to it that entrance exams (including JEE and AIEEE) can be given multiple times till a candidate is satisfied with his/her performance. So more exams and not less are needed to help the student.
Why so much hurry. That is easy to understand. 2014 is the year of general elections. Politicians do not want to do anything which could go wrong and become unpopular just around the election time. And it is not clear how to make moves now so that the Minister after 2014 elections is unable to stop the change. So you can't assume that it will necessarily happen in 2015. So the only option is 2013, even if appears to be somewhat unfair to some students.
If IITs were to considerably change their admission process and allow a 40-50 percent weight to the 12th class marks in 2013, would it not be unfair to someone who will give the 12th class exams in 2012. These students will claim that they spent much more time on the JEE test than the 12th class exams, since the marks in 12th class were not being counted towards admission, but now suddenly they are being told that their 12th class marks will indeed be considered for the admission purpose.
The boards are currently under legal obligation (because of a Supreme Court decision) to announce the 12th class result by 30th June. But that is too late for IIT admission. Will it be possible to ensure that results of every single board is announced by say, 10th June.
The specific questions that I am raising are not important. The important point is that if the process had been transparent, then lots of people would have had the opportunity to raise such questions, and if education sector will not have transparency then where else to expect transparency. I have no doubt in the wisdom of 40-50 wise persons who constitute IIT Council, but I do have doubts whether their combined wisdom is more than the combined wisdom of all other stake holders.
At the end, I am really hoping that media is just indulging in speculation and there is really no such secretive proposal that will be discussed and approved with just an hour of discussion.
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35 comments:
agree with every word you say! This Kapil Sibal is going bonkers. I particularly agree that it is Class XII exam that needs to change and not highly objective JEE. And what will they do with difference between various boards. For example, CBSE students generally get better grades than UP Board. How will they account for that. And yes, why there isn't any public debate?? Very fishy!
Indian politicians these days have gone mad...and soon they will ruin the education system...
I think the JEE is a spent force which is rapidly becoming a farce. There is no rationale for continuing it given how much it has been gamed and misused, and considering that IITs have to outgrow their UG-centric focus and become real, grown-up universities. I would support the decision because it is a courageous and timely one. The manner of decision-making, secretive or not, is of little relevance in this matter.
Furthermore, I don't think public discussion is the right way to address questions of this kind. The decision of the majority and the decision that is most effective are not the same thing. And our public does not have the acumen to opine on complex policy matters. In fact I feel the effect is opposite. The general Indian tendencies of 'widening the debate' and 'evolving consensus' are serve as instruments for obstruction of good ideas, and the same may happen here in case you ask the public for its inputs.
Dr. Sanghi, just out of curiosity, is this one of the first times the IIT authorities are acting in this secretive fashion ? Or has this been the norm throughout their history ?
@Ankur, If you support a change without knowing what the change is, well that is your choice, and your right.
Public discourse or discussion does not mean that we seek opinion of each and every citizen, or have a referendum. It only means that an opportunity is provided to every one to voice their opinions. The decision makers could ignore that opinion, but at least they will make a more informed decision.
Right now, IIT system has no clue how this will play out. An IITD Professor has written a comment on my facebook wall, which suggests that IIT system should do a dry run first with whatever system is agreed upon. So let us check who would have been admitted in 2011 if we had all the information from the boards, or let us check in 2012 what would be the status of admission if hypothetically the new system was in place. This would check multiple things. One, are the boards ready to announce results by beginning of June. Are boards willing to share percentile information. Whether the system cause any obvious biases, and so on.
No one has any data to show how the change will pan out, and if a major change is forced without any data, I don't think that is right. IITs don't even have data on how many of their students are in the top 1 percentile or 5 percentile or 10 percentile, etc.
So, while I have also been arguing on this blog that JEE is a spent force, and needs changes, I don't support a major change without proper data, proper study, and proper discussion.
But as I said above, you and all of us have a right to support decisions without knowing what those decisions are.
Yet another desperate attempt to get in more girls. Is the sex ratio really so important that one can encourage mugging and presentation skills over application even in one of the last bastions of sanity in the Indian education system? Leave alone the problems with differences among boards, etc. What's next, HR interviews where they test applicants for the ability to suck up to profs.?
@Vikram, These are administrative games. Given a proposal, you put them in two orthogonal categories. Do you want this or do you not want this. Second, will this be supported by stake holders or will this not be supported by stake holders. If you want to implement the proposal and you think that the stake holders will support it, then you make the proposal public and seek opinions of stake holders and then claim to be democratic, etc. Same thing you do if you don't want it and you are sure that stake holders don't want it either. But if your views differ from stake holders, then you become secretive.
Your article is balanced and positive in tone and tenor. The goal is to improve on an already excellent product. I am providing a link to a negative article running down the system published in international media.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/asia/02iht-letter02.html
Any Idea from any body on how to minimize the damage from such negative articles?
Chandresh,
Thanks for the link of NYtimes article. It is not a negative article, but a nicely written piece with much truth in it. There is no need to hide it from the world. We need more open discussions not secrecy in order to move forward.
common entrance test will be of no good to any of us.
iit jee questions are usually tough and aieee is a bit easier.
overall who knows about the level of questions that is going to come in CEET.
competion will be more and will create more stress and pressure on the students.
sibal is just playing with the careers of students.
weightage to 12th board exams is a good thing. Students need to have some minimum knowledge of things other than Physics, Math and Chemistry... .. Why ?
Years back when I was a final yr student at BITS Pilani, I was 'speaking' to a fresher, who was very depressed and gloomy that he just missed getting a decent branch/discipline in some IIT (old ones, the new ones weren't established then), and had an offer of Architecture 'only', so he forced himself to take up Comp. Science in BITS..he said he had studied so hard for JEE....
I asked "how many states are there in north-east India?" ...
He replied: "Two, Sir. Shillong and Guwahati."
Well, you might argue one doesn't need to know how many stats are there in NE india to achieve success in life.. well, then you don't need to know who Barack Obama is, or what planet we live on, to achieve 'success' in life !
digbijoy
This is not the only piece of 'legislation' that is being rushed without public debate. I'm sure it won't be debated in the parliament/ministry/wherever, like many other bills/subordinate legislations.
Law making in India is a joke, albeit a cruel one.
@digbijoy nath: Many years ago wasn't being a board topper the only way to get into BITS Pilani? Isn't your argument flawed, in that case.
Ya Saurabh, you're right.
So I am wondering how my argument is flawed, since in 12th board, guys do learn a little bit about other "unimportant" things apart from calculus, organic chemistry and thermodynamics :-)
@Nanda apparently this guy passed out in 2008, so his understanding of 'years back' may not be the same as yours.
@Digbijoy I see your frustration at the relative neglect of the north-eastern part of the country, but I would not blame your ragging victim for the obscurity this region faces among the populace of the rest of India.
Manu Joseph's article epitomises much that is wrong with Indian 'intelligentsia'. Most of the article is spent drumming up misandry. I wonder if these self-hating men ever take a look in the mirror to see what gender they themselves belong to. The rest is split among gloating at the success of Kapil Sibal in destroying the IIT brand, and bemoaning the ability of relatively objective criteria like JEE to break down class barriers for those willing to put in years of brute hard work - unlike his chosen field of journalism, where 'merit' equals the ability to conform to social norms.
It is easy for people to get confused by the examples of smart people who did well in both board exams and the JEE. The really interesting comparison is between people who did well in JEE but not in board exams, and vice-versa. Just think of the two kinds among the people you know, and you will know who really shows more understanding and application.
Two years back, a Kota-trained IIT student accompanied me to Rishikesh for a river rafting excursion. He asked the boatman about the name of the river he had been rafting on :P
Few days back, I got a letter from an ex-IIT student. The address of the letter mentions that Guwahati is in West Bengal :P (The non-IITian postman somehow delivered the letter to me.)
Come on Prof. Sanghi, it's well-known that a few state boards have tied up with coaching centers so that students don't need to study for subjects like history, geography and literature, but rather only need to intelligently guess answers for physics, chemistry and math questions. Is it not unfair to the students of other boards?
In my opinion, the IIT council is going to take a right decision which will bust this IIT-JEE admission racket.
@SASWATA: In which class do you think they teach basic stuff like 'rivers in India' & 'political map of India'? In which class do you think people study for IIT coaching, while ignoring their school curriculum? Answer these two questions and you'll see the flaw in your argument.
Btw, this is because of Indian behaviour rooted in the herd mentality and/or gaming the system. If it were not IIT-JEE people would be gaming the civil services, medical entrance, or bank exams. It's because *parents* do not see an ROI in studying the school curriculum. They see an ROI (read, 'respectable jobs') in gaming/cracking professional entrance exams.
@Saurabh
Please check the website of one famous Kota-based coaching center (http://www.resonance.ac.in/reso/index.aspx) to understand which class one starts preparing for IIT-JEE exam. Their so called "per-foundation" coaching (which destroys the foundation of a student) starts from class VII, at a stage when a student should focus on acquiring general knowledge from their school textbooks, in addition to grasping the basic concepts of science and math.
Please remember that these coaching centers admit students after an admission test, which forces the students to ignore acquiring knowledge of geography and history. A day might come when an IITian will not know the name of their state and country, but will only know that (s)he lives in the space-time model defined by Elbert Einstein :P Will that not be a shame to the country?
If people are so concerned with general knowledge of history and geography, the govt. should just make an objective type, standardized quiz on general knowledge and trivia - far better than testing people on the ability and willingness to appreciate aesthetics over functionality and to go along with prevailing prejudices instead of thinking for themselves.
Completely agree with Dr Sanghi's data-driven approach. It will put all the facts on the table -- wonder why policy makers don't do their homework and suggest a policy change *along with* such data and justifications.
Alright, let me not put any more arguments/opinions here to stress the topic :-)
Just to wind up: my 'frustration' for neglect of NE has absolutely nothing to do with the question of changing/not changing JEE pattern. The question about NE states was just a simple example to show how dumb some students can really be ! As I said above, a person can be a fantastic engineer or an acclaimed business expert etc. even if he/she doesn't know that Dr. Manmohan Singh is our country's PM or that the moon is the natural satellite of the earth. It's fine. 'Success' doesn't depend on general knowledge, trivia or geography or history.
And finally, Wonderwice, I'm not sure what you intended to say by suggesting a comparison between the two categories of students. [Btw, Saswata's points/comments are very true, from my personal experience.]. What I wish to say is that, there are a lot of IITians who have brought laurels and great fame to our country over the years, and we are proud of them. At the same time, there are a lot of non-IITians who brought fame and reputation too. Example ? Abdul Kalam, Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (he failed to clear JEE - he admitted), etc.
India is such a vast country that any change in JEE will hardly make any difference. Any examination procedure will be as good as the current examination system or the previous ones. The competition itself is so fierce that it renders any examination procedure useless. On an average 1 out of every 50 students taking the JEE get into IITs. In fact, the full form of JEE should be Joint Elimination Examination. The top 2000 students getting into the IITs are definitely the best in the country and any change in the examination system would not affect them. For the remaining approx. 8000 students, it is almost a lottery.
Coaching Institutes will never be shut down because of the fierce competition. They will merely adapt to the changing exam criteria. If Board exam results aree added to the selection criteria, they will start teaching for the Board examinations too.
If IITs start giving weightage to Board marks, how will they exactly do it??? We have so many state boards in the country along with the Central Boards. Some are easier than the others. The syllabus is also widely different. Also there is a huge question mark on the way state board exams are conducted. At least the JEE in the current form is clean. Will the new proposed system not produce inherent biases to some sections of the populace ???
Also, there is too much politics surrounding the JEE. To cater to the political demands, JEE has not been able to increase the cut-off percentage in Boards beyond the meaningless 60%.
We may think of bringing the entire country under one huge umbrella, the CBSE. But the state boards do serve a purpose. Just to cater to the demands of the both the urban and the rural population, the standards of CBSE has fallen drastically. The examination has become so easy that it has lost its discriminating capability, the most important criteria for an elimination exam like the JEE.
I may be cynical.But in spite of the problems with the current JEE, given the circumstances it may be the best possible solution.
The new system will put additional stress on students.
1. The students will have to excel in both the board exams and the aptitude-cum-advanced knowledge test. This will break the backs of students who are already burdened.
2. Coaching classes will proliferate even more. Already coaching classes are opening for aptitude tests and the schools are tying up with coaching classes for “extra coaching in all subjects for those wanting to go to IIT”. The HRD ministry knows this but prefers to ignore it.
3. Comparing the way a student studies for the JEE and for the board exam one will find it it’s the board exam which calls for rote learning. One will find sheer ‘mugging” can get one through board exams whereas for JEE one has to use the fundamentals they have learnt to solve new problems.
4. Besides now they want to put all the eggs in one basket and stress out the students further. Usually if a child misses JEE due to sickness or any other reason the child has the option to write the AIEEE. If there is only one exam and they miss it they will end up wasting a year.
5. There is great difference in the marking system as well as syllabus, question paper and correction across different boards.
6. Also as there is manual correction the same answer could be given different marks by different evaluators.
7. One cannot pretend that mass copying and cheating does not exist. A few years ago Mumbai Mirror brought out the fact that dozens of schools were found using an ‘open books” policy during the HSC exam in the town of Lathur. This is happening in many small towns in India.
8. A big reason for reforms was to reduce stress. If ministry really wants to reduce stress, it should ensure JEE can be taken more times (not just twice). So more exams and not less are needed to help the student.
The main question is why? Why is Kapil Sibil concentrating so much on an entrance exam spending so much time and money and effort on it when they should be concentrating on the basics? More than half the population of our country has no access to education. There are not enough, schools and colleges in the country, the quality of teachers is falling dangerously every year, and quality of education in general is at an abysmal level at the primary school stage. Are all these people not “human resource”?
The next most important question that needs to be asked is why this haste? Why 2013? Why implement an untried and untested system in such a hurry?
The answers seem obvious. The reasons are as follows.
1. Evidently the HRD minister feels there is something to be gained by focusing on the entrance exam issue rather than on improving the general quality of education especially primary education.
2. The change needs to be done quickly before the general elections.
If these changes are implemented, the system will be opened up for corruption. Basically the JEE was foolproof all these years. No amount of money or influence could get people in. I guess in India the rich and influential who are used to getting whatever they want with their money and power cannot bear it so they are trying to open up the system to corruption. Every year lacs of students get 100 percent in board exams, who is better than whom? How will they accommodate them all in the IITs? Who will be the chosen few? Will it not become based on recommendation, money etc?
It is apparent that the HRD officials are very secretive and tightlipped about the details. Doing changes in such a secretive fashion is likely to create more problems and not solve existing problems.
One important information which proves that these changes are not being made with the best interests of the students. The T Ramasami committee, which is working on new single exam, chose to ignore the facts presented to them by the Indian Statistical Institute. CHk out http://www.dailypioneer.com/nation/39468-now-jee-with-class-12-count-faces-feasibility-glare.html?tmpl=component&layout=default&page=
Digbijoy: Obviously, the point is that our understanding of what constitutes 'general knowledge' varies from person to person. While you may find people who do not know names of states in NE India to be dumb, those same people may have better knowledge about eg. south Indian states, etc. Or they may have spent more time learning about History, some people take pride in their knowledge of their religions, etc. All in all, if some fact has come to the knowledge of an individual or if they are genuinely interested in it, they may pay more attention to it. Otherwise, maybe they won't. Making knowledge of such tidbits a criteria for deciding who is a worthy candidate only encourages students who are good at figuring out what people in positions of authority consider to be important - and going along with it. Focusing on such pieces of information privileges those students who are more well off and connected to such sources of information to begin with, and who may share the outlook on life of those people who set the papers. I would be the first to admit that this is a restriction of any kind of examination process, but an examination which has a focus on actual application of knowledge rather than rote memorization of facts dilutes this drawback, somewhat. JEE may not be perfect in this regard, but it is not nearly as bad as any of the board exams.
My point is not that JEE is the ultimate test of one's abilities, but that board exams are worse than JEE. Although many great minds exist who did not clear JEE, I wonder how many of them were board exam toppers. I hope you are at least beginning to understand what I meant by comparing the two categories of students.
Lastly, while Saswata's frustration at the existence of a place where mugging is not sufficient for admission may be showing, I for one long for the day when the tyranny of the state comes to and end, and people are content to describe themselves by their current understanding of the physical laws of the universe rather than petty bickering about nations and states.
Being the dean of academic affairs at IITK I am sure you must be having the director's ear. Can't you make him agree to your viewpoint so that he may present your case(which I personally agree with) at the ministry.
Dheeraj's Director is the Chairman of the Committee working out the changes. Since all the details have not been worked out, they have not been released. Are we being secretive? Not really. The IIT Council and the NIT Council have both already approved the inclusion of Board results in Sept-Nov 2011. Many media reports have given some details of what is likely and what is feasible. I myself have given more than one interview which have been published indicating what is likely. I produce below excerpts (slightly edited) of on article I wrote for the IIT Bombay alumni magazine Fundamatica and which is available on the Net. The IIT JEE Board is meeting on Feb 18 and I hope things will take shape then.
There is a proposal to change the way students are selected into the IIT system, and in fact into all institutes of technical education. The adverse impact of coaching on young minds has been identified as a major impediment to the natural intellectual growth of our youngsters. So there is a proposal to take into account the result of Board examinations in some form along with an aptitude test as part of a new admission policy. There is a lot of doubt in the minds of many as how the Board results of 30 odd Boards with different standards can be compared. How will the differences in these Boards be handled? Won’t there be marks inflation? The way the Board results are likely to be factored in is to use the percentile rank of a student as his / her marks out of hundred. So the rank of a student in his Board and the size of the Board he is in will decide his marks out of hundred. So if Board A has 100 students and the first 7 ranks are A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7, and Board B has 50 students and the first 4 ranks are B1, B2, B3 and B4, then the overall ranks will be A1 B1 (tie), A2, A3 B2 (tie), A4, A5 B3 (tie), A6, A7 B4 (tie) . The marks a student gets will not be counted, only his rank in the Board will be. So marks inflation will not be an issue. Is this a fair method? We can have different opinions on this, as fairness is a complex issue, but we have to look at the overall result of the proposed changes and see if it is positive or not. There will a challenge of getting the results of all school Boards on time and in electronic form with all details. This scheme will not stop coaching, but it will ensure that it takes place for the Board exams also. More importantly, it will take place in the schools themselves. But then, is this not schooling? What will the coaching institutes do? They will have to convert themselves into schools. That will give us so many high quality schools!
Gautam Barua, IITG Director
Thank you Prof Barua. I think this is a well thought out and timely proposal. The reasoning that you presented is also sound and balanced. Instead of endlessly arguing over whether a certain move is ideal, committee has decided to make a move that will have an overall positive effect. That is precisely how policy should be made.
I hope this move is also coupled with other policy changes that will allow coaching classes to rebrand themselves as schools and colleges. There are many positive things about the coaching industry - it is streamlined, it has managed large scale, it is result oriented and it treats its faculty like superstars (something no other educational establishment in India does). Your move effectively channels these qualities to the benefit of students.
I wish the committee the very best.
Converting coaching classes into schools will be a very tough challenge, given the amount of regulation in the 'formal' education space.
And I'm surprised no one is talking about this aspect of the policy-change in the mainstream media. Is this really something that the committee is targeting or possible side-effect that may or may not happen?
In places like delhi,kota, hyderabad (called the 'coaching hubs') the students are trained throughout the day for the competitive exam.
Inclusion of class 12 board exam performance is obviously the need of the hour.
At kota,the students enter the school premises only for the boards exams rest is taken care of by their masters.(I am citing example of my own cousin who is preparing since last 3yrs).
At delhi, the parents are ready to cough up as much required for what they call "senior faculty".
But there is a counterview too.
At Hyderabad, which is said to produce jee top rankers since last three years, the coaching institutes teach 24*7 while the students also have to give the year end exams of their board(ANDHRA PRADESH BOARD) also.
What should we call this 'SCHOOL COACHING' or 'SPECIAL COACHING' while entering such schools requires one to clear entrance exam and be in top 300 out of 10,000.
And same is the case in some of delhi schools also.
But here one has to accept the fact that aren't such literate parents be blamed for helping the brand coaching flourish be it "recession times" or whatever?
Further i would like to give the the example of a well established institute in delhi running since decades which recently had all its centers sealed due to the some salary crisis of its faculty and the bank loans. The insitute was training more than 2000 students for jee, while its classes have been called off since last 5 months.
Here why are we only to blame the "brand coaching" and not the parents who are to ready to spend
lakhs of rupees for training their ward for 2yrs.
Even if the coaching institutes suffer a drawback after the decision, (which seems irrelevant now) won't there be the tuition teachers who are ready to teach at one's convenience at his homeplace.
Won't this continue the era of coaching to further heights??
The present act of the government is completely wrong. Its more of an attempt to kill the coaching institues rather than upgrading the quality of education. One fails to realise that the only place where real teaching for the 11-12 th standard is taking place is in these coaching centers and not the schools. removing them would actually cut down even the minimum that students are getting of their own because the governmet doesnt opens any schools which can provide good education at this level(to qualify competetive exams).more over including the board results would actually lead to shifting of people studying in the state boards to isc or cbse schools.the correction criteria of these boards are far different and even cheating and using unfair means is common in these places. Eventually this attempt would ruin the whole of education system.
The need of the hour is not to kill down these coaching centres but actually increasing the number of seats in these colleges as population is increasing at rapid rate and more and more people are giving these exams.
@Gautam, I agree with you that we must encourage students to take school education seriously. But two issues. One, whether giving the board marks a weight in the admission process is the right thing to do, or is there an alternate mechanism which may be better. Two, the boards too must start taking school education seriously, and we should do start with some involvement of the board, which keeps increasing as the quality of boards improve.
But to do anything, we need data to show how serious the problem is today, and to show in future whether the steps that we have taken have indeed solved that specific problem.
I would like to know what is the percentile distribution of ranks amongst those who are in Common Merit List in 2011. If we find (very unlikely) that over 90 percent of those in CML were actually having a percentile of 95 or better in their respective boards, then it is obvious that IIT is selecting those who are taking board exams seriously already, and no change needs to be done.
But suppose the data shows that 90 percent (or any such high number) of CML rankers are above 85 percentile in their respective boards. (This is what I would expect the data to show.) This data would indeed indicate that there is a mismatch between JEE performance and board performance. And now if we want to push people to consider board exams seriously, we could declare 85 percentile as the minimum cutoff for admission to IITs, and we announce a roadmap which says that percentile requirement will go up by 1 percentile every year for the next 5 years, till we hit 90, and we will review it again at that time.
This ensures that there is no shock to student community, by making a large number of people who have been working for 2-3 years for JEE, suddenly find that their plans have gone awry, and by making sure that there will be some students who are denied admission to IITs based on their 12th class marks, we send the signal that you can't take boards for granted.
Also, over the years, as there is a pressure on boards to improve their functioning since their marks are becoming important for admission, we keep improving on how much we trust board marks (by increasing the eligibility cutoff).
Of course, we should also keep reviewing the whole situation in whether this causes other problems (like many have suggested that this will increase coaching and not reduce, since now students will start coaching for board exams in even larger number, and that the corruption in boards will go up and not go down with years).
can't someone verify what changes are going to takeplace/or can't someone provide upto date infos about the decisions ? I am almost comign to the end of my XI th std and i am not sure abt on what to cocentrate boards or IIT JEE .
sir i am going appear first time for iit jee in this year..but i have a doubt that from next year i.e. from 2013 exam pattern are going to change, so if i am not able to clear jee then will i get the another chance in 2013 or this is my last chance.
A)Decision makers pushing of boards marks in the form of percentile system or normalization of bd marks in IIT selections have a serious dimension which is not understood by public so far.
> Board’s marks will lead to board wise quota in IIT .
Surprised ! now I will show mathematically. Proposed system will have three component 1) board mark + 2) aptitude + 3) advance .To understand the implication of high weight age of bd marks let’s keep other two component(aptitude and advance ) fixed. Now all the seats in IIT will be equally distributed in 30 boards based on ranking in respective boards.
>which in turn means that Top 350 student of each board will get selection in IIT(350*30=10500 total III seats).
>This in turn will tantamount to state wise quota in IIT. >
>Smaller state boards eg assam or Nagaland board will benefit and large bd student's eg cbse will suffer. This will be at the cost of merit.
I think this is the hidden agenda of state wise qouta in IIT is being pursued by decision makers.which need to be protested.
Mr Gutam may say that it is good to take topper of each board.then point as below need to be addressed first before final decision is taken.
B) IITJEE was considered to be tamperproof so far.But malpractices in board exam are known to every body. Here result can be purchased with money power. I have video of board exam where entire class is copying. I fail to understand as why IIT council have chosen to rely on a system which is easy to manipulate.
few other questions ?
C)How marks obtained in sanskrit,hindi or say music are related to engineering aptitude ????? ( yes ,music is also an option in a board)
D)Only feasible solution is to increase the eligibility criterion as suggested by dheeraj instead of adding marks.
I hope decision maker read these blog and avoid their name being written in history as the equivalent of Tuglak.
Vedprakash
IIT K 82-86
Chief Engineer Central Railway
mumbai
Dheeraj
How are you!I am Vikrant , your class mate in 12th class in SBM school delhi.I agree with your views.
If any change in system, it should be in phase manner i.e. first weightage of CBSE board only (i.e. PCM) in 2014 then common entrance test replacing AIEEE & IIT JEE by 2015
Vikrant
GM
RELIANCE INFRA
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