Where I Disagree with JEE Change Proposal?

I had an interesting discussion with a colleague on the proposed changes to the admission process of IITs (and other Centrally Funded Technical Institutes).

He asked me several pointed questions, and that helped me in really thinking through all options and figure out what is a major problem and what is a minor problem in the whole story (in my opinion - your mileage may vary).

The first question was, how I feel about including a test on aptitude in the admission process. I certainly feel positive about it.

The second question was, would it be alright if NITs, other CFTIs, and may be other colleges and universities start using JEE performance for admission. I see a small issue with this. If everybody starts using this performance, the the number of candidates become 10-15 lakhs, and it will have to be outsourced. May be there will be pressures from other stake holders to changes the exam in ways that we don't like. But, then these are minor issues. Any one anyway has a right to use the performance of a public exam in any way they deem fit. So we can't stop it anyway. And IIMs have shown that even though CAT is used by many and it is given by large number of students, they maintain complete control over its content. So, even if IITs have to outsource JEE, they can still retain adequate control.

The third question was, whether it was alright for a professional body like ETS to conduct the exam. Well, the answer is yes, if they are only going to conduct the exam, but if they determine the syllabus, they determine the pattern and style of the exam, they determine the level of difficulty, then there will be concerns. Over the last several years, many changes have been brought in in the conduct of JEE. Many of those changes were not because of the wider discussions at IITs, and were not very positive. In fact, the complaint has been that IITs are not proactive in making changes. But a body independent of IITs will really not be independent. It would be far easier for the MInistry to force changes in the admission process through this so-called independent body. So, we are going from a system of resisting changes to a system where ministry and not academicians will decide the changes. Does not seem like an improvement.

The fourth question was, do I believe that current JEE has negative impact on school education and a way has to be found to encourage school education. Yes, I do. Current JEE has contributed to lowering the quality of education in schools.

Then, am I not agreeing with everything that the new plan is doing or trying to achieve.

Sorry, no. The devil is in the detail. I strongly believe that there are alternate ways of encouraging school education. Considering the normalized board marks (assuming that the committee has found a good-enough formula for normalization) for eligibility would have an equally strong impact on school education, without adding to the stress of the students. By considering school marks in such a cut-throat competition, they are increasing stress, and incentivising unfair practices in the board exams, and it is next to impossible to bring down the unfair practices when there are 25-30 lakh candidates giving 5-10 tests each. What is more, there is nothing one gains by including 12th class marks in the admission process. The goal is to ensure that students preparing for admission to IITs (and other fine institutions) should take school education seriously. This will be achieved by having the 12th class marks as eligibility criteria, without the negative side effects.

Further, the proposal does not talk about the biggest problem of all: stress due to an exam on a single day. The ISEET exam is proposed to be conducted twice a year, but nothing has been said whether a student is allowed to give it both the times and show only the higher performance to the admissions committee. Even if it does, we need to go further and have this exam through out the year.

Third, it does not consider the problems of conducting a large test.securely. The problem that we find with board exams will slowly creep into any large test. One way to control the problem was to have 2-stage selection process. This made sure that even if someone could get through to the second stage by unfair means, the security in the second stage would be so tight that it won't be able to use unfair means at that time. If having the first stage in December was a problem, then the solution was not to cancel it, but to hold it earlier, may be even six additional months in advance (and indeed hold it multiple times, with option to repeat them).

Fourth, I see the process wrong and giving rise to suspicions. In the past, so many people have given so many suggestions from within the IIT system as well as from outside, and what do Directors do - dump those suggestions, citing ministry pressures, or some other "practical" problems. Now suddenly many of them are on an overdrive in supporting a proposal which is opposed by most stake holders. As Abi would say, does not pass the smell test.

Questions on JEE Changes?

Just a few days ago, I wrote a blog post on whether JEE was going away. I was reading about it in the media, and had not found anything on Ministry's website. But now, it is confirmed that there was indeed a meeting held in January, in which a small group of Directors met the Minister, Dr. Ramasami, a few ministry officials, etc., and in-principle agreed to hold another national level exam, Indian-Sceince-Engineering-Eligibility-Test (ISEET), which along with the board marks will become basis for admission to IITs, NITs, and other centrally funded technical institutes (CFTIs).

What is worrisome about this plan is that not only the stake holders know anything about the test and how board marks will be normalized, even this group does not know how this will be done. So, a decision has been taken to normalize board marks and a deadline has been decided to implement this, without knowing how that normalization will take place. Apparently, there is some proposal in Ramasami report, which it is hoped will be found to work with all boards, etc. But why not make this formula public, and let experts and stake holders also check if this will have any problems. Why this secrecy, secrecy, secrecy di?

It is hoped that the testing of the formula in cooperation with all the boards of the country will be completed by April. But what if the testing reveals a flaw. The students who have been preparing for JEE 2013 will be told in February about the changed system, and again in April that sorry, we are going back to the old system. Why can't the decision wait till that so-called formula has been tested. Why can't it be implemented from 2014. Why this urgency, urgency, urgency di?

There is a hope that all boards will agree to announce their results by beginning of June. Why make a major change in the hope that everything will work out fine. Why not have a dry run this year, ask all the boards to announce the results by 1st June, and see if they actually deliver on their promise. What will happen next year, if a board announces the results after 15th June. How will IITs complete their counseling, and two or three rounds of admission process, within a month. Currently, we complete our admission process in about 7-8 weeks, after JEE result is declared. Remember, the boards are currently required to announce the results only by 30th June.

It is understood that the current system is not working well, and there is a need to encourage students to perform in schools. But, nowhere in the debate, is one mentioning whether there are alternate mechanisms of encouraging performance in schools. For example, many of the stake holders have often argued that school performance should be used as a minimum cut-off. That 60 percent requirement for IIT admission is ridiculous. The only reason for not increasing 60 percent is how to normalize performance across the boards. But, well, if there is a good enough normalization algorithm that these wise men have come up with, and this is so great a mechanism that it can be used as a weight in the admission process, then certainly it is good enough to be used as a cut-off for eligibility.

And using the board marks for eligibility has a significant advantage. Many people have talked about cheating in the board exams. If the marks are used only for eligibility, the incentive for cheating is less, and cheating by even several thousand students does not change eligibility of an honest student. But if the marks are directly going to be used for admission, then every single student who gets high marks based on cheating is affecting the career of a large number of honest students.


The other problem that this exercise is trying to solve is the stress due to multiple exams. But what the wise men have not been able to figure out is that with this change, they are actually making more exams count. Every mark in every subject test of the board exams now count. So are we increasing the number of exams that count, or decreasing the number ?

I find the response of one of the colleagues interesting. We should probably not worry about under-graduate education any more, and put our efforts in improving graduate education, where the interference of the government is less. We should work with the industry to make sure that they prefer our MTechs, and let under-graduate education be a volume game, no worries about quality. Students who are really serious should do an MTech. But then we will only be inviting political interference in our graduate programs.

Telecom Licenses Cancelled

This post is only about remembering the past, and no ideas or opinions are presented here.

Yesterday, Supreme Court decided that all 122 telecom licenses issued by the government after Jan 2008 should be terminated as it found the process illegal. It was an unexpected decision. Many experts were of the opinion that collectively, these 122 networks were too big to be allowed to fail, a customer base of about 70 million, and an investment of more than 5 billion dollars. So, even if the process was illegal, the courts may find a way to penalize the licensees (like asking them to pay a much higher price of the license). But that was not to be. I am sure we haven't seen the end-game yet. The telecom companies will definitely seek a review by a larger bench.

About 10 years ago, a similar case was being fought in TDSAT. Reliance Infocom had been charged with violation of license conditions. They were effectively offering mobile service with the basic service license, which allowed something called, "limited mobility." The problem was that this case had caused an uncertainty in the market, and the fresh investments in the telecom sector were difficult to come by. The telecom industry was not growing at the pace it was expected to or should have. Everyone wanted this case to be disposed off quickly.

I recall that IIT Madras had organized a workshop around 1st February, 2003, as part of National Communications Conference, titled, "201 million connections by 2010." The workshop goal was to identify research challenges and strategies to solve them so that telecom  equipment cost comes down to a level where it becomes affordable to a common Indian, and we could have 201 million connections by 31st December, 2010. A lot of telecom experts were there, and so were economists, sociologists, who gave us all kind of data about  disposable income, income distribution, the value that a poor or middle class Indian has for voice, and at what price point, such a person will become a subscriber to the telecom service. We were told about the standards that China was creating, the research its companies were doing, and so on.

Almost at the end of the deliberations, I requested that I be allowed to speak for a few minutes, which I was. My point was simple. If Reliance wins the case, and TRAI were to force free incoming calls (recall we had to pay for incoming also till 2003), then we will have 201 million connections by 2008, without any additional support by the Government. My argument was roughly the following. We are looking at 17-18% tele-density in 2008. When did China achieved 17-18% tele-density. What was the per capita income of China at that time. At 6-7 per cent growth rate, when will India have that per capita income. And from the numbers that people from economics background were giving in that workshop, I estimated that year to be 2008.

But this will happen ONLY if the regulatory environment in the two countries is similar, and the business confidence is at a level where some one is willing to invest in the sector. For boosting business confidence, the Reliance case had to be solved. And the regulatory issue was to have free incoming.

I also thought about another issue which I was too afraid to speak out that day. The telecom equipment prices had crashed in this period. So India should achieve 17-18% tele-density at a lower per capita income than China did, and I wanted to say that India will achieve 201 million connections in 2007, but felt that people will not take me seriously if I were to say that. Not that many took 2008 seriously. There was an uproar, a lot of personal remarks. What did I know about socio-economic factors. China had more equitable distribution of wealth compared to India. The cultures are different, they value voice differently. They have their own telecom standards. And, here I was, without understanding anything about either economics or technology, based on some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations, "challenging" all the experts. I must have also been anti-research.

(And just for the bragging rights, very soon the Reliance case was solved, and TRAI made the free incoming, and India did have its 201st millionth connection in 2007.)

There was one gentleman in the room, who was from DoT, and who sensed that I might be right. We started talking. He gave me an interesting perspective. If Reliance won the case with 3-0 margin, government would be under political pressure to challenge the verdict in Supreme Court. If Reliance were to lose the case 3-0, then they would obviously go to SC, and politically, government would not be able to engage them in an out-of-court settlement. So the best solution would be that the case is decided by a split verdict, and then government engages Reliance in some negotiations, and they agree to pay a few thousand crores, which they will, rather than fight it out in Supreme Court, and continue with an uncertain business and policy environment. (This is exactly what happened.)

My back-of-the-envelope calculations were of so much interest to him that he arranged my meetings in Delhi with the Minister (Mr. Shourie), Secretary, Department of Telecom, and Chairman, TRAI. (I don't know why he wanted me to directly explain to them that paid incoming and the Reliance case were the bottlenecks in the growth of telecom industry. He could have done it himself. And, in any case, there were enough people in the country who were saying the same thing.)

But the sense I got from this gentleman and other bigwigs was that everyone believed that Reliance was too big to fail. That notwithstanding Reliance's legal position, which apparently was reasonably strong, courts would be sympathetic with a 10,000 crore investment.

And based on that feedback, 9 years ago, I was expecting the court to be sympathetic with Rs. 25,000 crore investment, and find a way out to legalize the process, if they found it illegal. While an individual license was small, but as a sum total, these 122 licenses were assumed to be too big to fail. But predictions by non-experts can only come true once in a life time, not twice.

It would be interesting to watch, what next.