Brand
IIT versus GoI. It’s only the latest battle in this summer of seemingly
endless discontent. Union minister for human resource development Kapil
Sibal continues his on-off battle to snap away at the heels of the
IIT-combine in his quest to rewrite the statute books. Sibal’s goal of a
single engineering examination for the centres par excellence and all
engineering colleges has caused consternation and heartburn. But, more
importantly, it has led to plenty of confusion (and even fear) among the
hundreds of thousands of students lining up to enter the portals of the
country’s premier engineering institutes.
Sources in the HRD
ministry insist the entire exercise was conducted democratically. But
when Sibal found very few takers for his proposal, which he wanted to
introduce by 2013, he decided to ram them home. The result—a mutiny by
the IITs.
The media has reported extensively on how the IIT combine shot down
Sibal’s proposal back in 2010 when he had constituted a committee under
Damodar Acharya, director, IIT-Kharagpur, to propose a common
engineering examination with adequate weightage to Class 12
examinations. When this was rejected, another committee recommended a
two-tier exam—one for screening, and the second, an advanced one, with
Class 12 exam scores having 40 per cent weightage. This, too, the IITs
rejected. And now, yet again, they’re raising the banner of revolt,
citing that IITs are autonomous institutes governed by an act of
Parliament and whose affairs the GoI should stay out of.
Are the IITs then really as cussed and resistant to change as they’re
being made out to be? At the 44th meeting of the Council of IITs
(comprising ex-officio members of IITs, directors and chairmen,
secretary-MHRD and other officials) in the HRD ministry, held on May 12,
with the exception of IIT-Guwahati, it was decided to retain the
existing examination format for next year. The IITs also broadly agreed
on the following:
- Nothing should be done to tamper with the existing system in a
hurry. It will only lead to confusion.
- Other broad agreements included a screening test for the purpose
of admissions to the undergraduate programme at the IITs, from which a
limited number of candidates would be eligible for an advanced test.
- There was no clear majority view on whether school board
performance would count in the final merit list.
- Details of the advanced test were to be finalised in due course
after a discussion with all the IITs so that it could be implemented
from 2014.
Says A.K. Chaturvedi, dean, IIT-Kanpur, “We are open to discussions.
But we strongly feel that what Sibal is proposing will not only lead to
more stress but also lead to the mushrooming of thousands of coaching
institutes—both of which the minister wanted to bring down. The
proposals suggested by him defeat his twin purposes.” Each of the IITs
has a separate senate, which exercises control on the admission
procedure. In this raging debate, the senates, at times, are at variance
with the council. Broadly, the senates of IITs, with the exception of
IIT-Guwahati, have agreed on the following:
- The current practice will continue.
- From 2014, the National Entrance Test will be used as a
screening test for the purpose of admissions.
- From those who clear it, a certain number of candidates will be
chosen to take the advanced test.
- IITs will conduct the advanced test. Only this test will
determine whether a candidate gets a seat.
- Board performance will not be used for the final merit list.
While seeking time, the IITs’ resistance to board exams serving as
markers for admission stems from a concern: the heterogeneity in
syllabus, instruction and evaluation process across boards makes
standardisation unfeasible. Evidently, the ministry hasn’t factored this
in.
Sibal too has his supporters. “Since the boards and their examination
standards were different, it was felt that the candidates should be
evaluated through a common examination,” says Damodar Acharya, director,
IIT-Kharagpur. SAT in the US, he goes on to add, forms one component of
the basis for admission, the other components being school performance
and recommendations from teachers. In India, admission to engineering
schools is based entirely on a student’s performance in the JEE.
Academically, this is not the best solution.
| |
|
|
“The branding of an institution is not through an
entrance exam but through the kind of intellectual capital it produces.”Dr Pritam Singh, Former director, IIM-Lucknow | |
| |
|
|
Dr Pritam Singh, former director of IIM-Lucknow and a
prominent management teacher, feels that globally, all leading
institutions have followed a common thread without any impact on their
own systems. Says he, “Universities like Harvard, MIT, Stanford,
Carnegie Mellon and Cornell have a common exam along with smaller
colleges and universities. That has not eroded their brand value. The
branding of an academic institution is not through an entrance
examination but through the kind of intellectual capital it produces.
The Brahminical arrogance of some institutions which consider
themselves superior and others untouchable is not fair.”
As someone who has considerable stake in this raging debate for the
sheer effort in enabling the most depressed sections dream of getting
into the IITs, Super 30 coach Anand Kumar’s mobile phone has not stopped
ringing. He even has anxious students and parents land up at his
doorstep. “My students, current, past and future, are calling me up and
expressing concern about the proposals. Will poor students be affected
by the change, they ask me.”
Poor students will be affected if school marks were accorded
weightage. “The marks awarded are so low that they cannot compete with
ICSE or CBSE,” says Anand. “If the new system comes into being, they
would be overlooked. They would have to go back to being sweepers and
compounders in spite of having the potential to be engineers and
scientists.”
| |
|
|
“Built as centres of excellence, IITs were an
elitist concept. But then Cambridge, Oxford or Harvard, all are
elitist.”Sandipan Deb, Alumnus,
IIT-Kharagpur | |
| |
|
|
Similar scenes of confusion prevail in Hyderabad as
well. Many students who were packed off to coaching centres from Class 8
onwards to conquer the IIT rainbow are now grappling with the
implications of Sibal’s proposed monster. While the common test is being
offered as a solution to many ills, students and parents are unsure
about the experiment. Avinash Dal, whose son Ashwin will take the test
in 2014, says that one man (Sibal) should not decide the fate of so many
students. “IITians have done our country proud,” he says. “This change
may dilute the quality of IITs. It appears to be a move to take over the
autonomy of IITs and bring in foreign universities.” Ashwin, a student
at Narayana Institute, shrugs off the hullabaloo but wonders what the
main exam would consist of. Would it be language, mental ability,
physics, chemistry or math? “The suspense is what is making many
students nervous,” he says.
Academicians have mixed feelings about the
test. Renowned educationist and MLC, Chukka Ramaiah, who runs the IIT
Ramaiah coaching centre, says the change would bring Indian students on a
par with international standards. “IITs are ranked 147th in the world.
Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore are ahead of us. When IITians enter the
global market, they sometimes appear to lack in comprehension,
reasoning capacity and analytical thinking,” he says. If coaching
centres are the target of Sibal’s policy, they do not seem to have taken
any hit yet. The intake into these centres continues to be
mind-boggling.
In Kota town of Rajasthan, better known as the epicentre of IIT-JEE
coaching, the centres have woken up to the import of the new policy in
the offing. Out here, many appear for exams from the centres at Kota or
from their hometowns, not from the schools they have studied at. Sibal’s
changes would mean these centres will have to reorient their package to
include preparations for board exams—the results of which will matter
in Sibal’s scheme of things.
Tamalika Basu, who has been at the famed Bansal Institute in Kota for
20 days, thinks differently. “The Bansal Institute,” she says, “is
teaching me five steps to learning. When I can clear them, they say I
will clear IIT—so I would certainly be able to clear my board exams. And
I don’t need to attend school for it. I’ll stay on here in Bansal by
registering my centre in a dummy school to write my exams.” As things
stand, such dummy schools (or schools where one appears for Class 12
exams) will provide the cushion for students to continue with their
IIT-JEE preparations alongside board exams.
Where, from here?
Students at the Chaitanya Academy, Hyderabad. (Photograph by P. Anil
Kumar)
Former IITians, who never really
sever the umbilical cord with their alma mater, feel there has been too
much interference with the IIT system. Arjun Malhotra, an alumnus of
IIT-Kharagpur, chairman of global IT giant Headstrong, and one of the
most prominent voices amongst the IIT alumni, says, “I don’t know the
objective behind the common exam, but it is completely irrational. My
view is simple: why try and fix something that is not broken?”
People attached to the IIT universe say that Sibal’s attempt to
equate the combined exams for engineering colleges with GMAT/GRE is
faulty. Students get several chances in a year to take exams like the
GMAT or GRE and the scores are valid for a specified period of time. No
such system has been proposed for the new joint entrance exams. A bigger
problem is that, with all the major engineering exams coming under one
umbrella, should a student miss the date or is unable to take the exam,
he/she loses an entire year. Again, there is total ambiguity on this
aspect.
| |
|
|
“I don’t know the objective behind a common exam,
but it’s totally irrational. Why fix something that is not broken?”Arjun Malhotra, Chairman, Headstrong | |
| |
|
|
Says an IIT professor, “You are making the whole
system completely uncertain. This will bring 18 different boards with
their own systems and their own judgement into one system and open doors
for corruption.” Concern is also being expressed over the enhanced
logistics Sibal’s proposal for a combined exam will entail.
Fundamentally, it’s a deep-rooted opposition. A common examination
would equate the IIT brand with “smaller” entities and take away the
vaunted IIT-JEE control away from them. Says Sandipan Deb, an
IIT-Kharagpur alumnus, “The IITs were built to be centres of excellence,
with the best students and the best teachers. It was an elitist
concept, as out of a lakh applications only 2,000-3,000 could get in.
But all great education systems, like Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, are
elitist.”
It was probably because of this closely-controlled IIT system that
the Singapore government in February this year expressed a desire to
have an IIT campus in their country, which already has campuses from
great universities like Johns Hopkins. In fact, PanIIT, an influential
IIT alumni association, too has written to the HRD minister voicing its
concerns against standardisation, and advising him to respect their
autonomy.
Whether you see merit in Sibal’s proposal or in the IITs’ opposition
to it, one thing is clear: the current stand-off isn’t helping anyone,
least of all, IIT aspirants. Five lakh of them take the JEE, and another
10 lakh the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE). They
are uncertain about how Sibal’s proposed combined exam will work for
them—and whether it will be fair. There are many doubters at the moment.
Sibal will need to do more than standardise the system. He also needs
to get back to the basics, starting with sorting out our schools.
By Anuradha Raman with Arindam Mukherjee, Chandrani Banerjee,
Madhavi Tata, Dola Mitra and Pushpa Iyengar
