HRD Ministry reaches out to IITs on common test
NEW DELHI,
April 6, 2012
Aarti Dhar
IIT-JEE and AIEEE entrance tests to be merged from 2013
Union Human Resource Development Ministry will hold a
meeting with the Indian Institutes of Technology to address their
concern over the proposed common national examination for science and
engineering for Central institutes that is to be implemented from 2013.
The older IITs — Kharagpur, Kanpur, Delhi, Bombay,
Guwahati and Madras were the ones that raised the concern.
The meeting will be held on April 11 and the IIT Directors,
representatives of the faculty federation and other faculty members
have been invited. Its outcome will be further deliberated at the IIT
Council meet to be held on April 14, though the IITs have not questioned
need to hold a common entrance examination.
Last
month, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal announced merger of the entrance
examinations of the Indian Institutes of Technology-Joint Entrance
Examination (IIT-JEE) and the All-India Engineering Entrance Examination
(AIEEE).
A common test would be held and the
best-scoring students could choose an institution of their choice.
The five Indian Institutes of Science Education and
Research had subsequently agreed to adopt the common entrance test that
will cover admissions to 15 IITs, 30 National Institutes of Technology
and four Indian Institutes of Information Technology. Private
institutions and States can also adopt the test.
While
Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi and Chandigarh have decided to join this
system, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Puducherry and West Bengal
sought more time to study the proposal. All universities and
institutions offering engineering courses will now use the all-India
merit list for admissions.
Objections
The
IITs recently expressed reservation over the entrance test being only of
objective-type questions and the use of a weightage formula to consider
the Class XII board exam performance. The IITs made it clear that they
would like to conduct the test, instead of entrusting it with the
Central Board of Secondary Education.
The IITs
pointed out that the new system with higher weightage for Class XII
board examinations was not practical.
Since the
assessment system varied among school boards, it would not be possible
to assess all students by the same scale and weightage.
Also, the use of only objective-type questions in the
proposed test has not found favour with the IITs, which have suggested
that the test should carry long answer-type questions.
The proposed common eligibility test will consist of two
parts.
The first will be an aptitude test of
objective type testing the students' abilities of comprehension,
critical thinking and logical reasoning.
The second
is an advance test based on the students' problem-solving abilities for
basic science subjects.
