440 - Maha to adopt Sibal's CET model from 2013: Min - ZEE News

Maha to adopt Sibal's CET model from 2013: Min

Jalna: Maharashtra will adopt the single common entrance test (CET) model for admissions to engineering colleges, including the Indian Institutes of Technologies (IITs) and National Institute of Technologies (NITs), from 2013, state technical education minister Rajesh Tope said on Monday. 

"A proposal in this regard has been prepared and will soon be presented to the state Cabinet for its approval," Tope told a press conference here. 

The new format suggested by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal for admission to all central government-funded engineering institutions - IITs, NITs, IIITs etc, proposes one common entrance test, the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), which will replace the old IIT-JEE and AIEEE. 

"Maharashtra government will give 50 percent weightage to marks scored by students of both English and non-English medium schools in their class XII exam", Tope said. 

The minister said that day and night classes have been started in the state polytechnic colleges for the students from minority communities. 

Tope said that the government will initiate measures to tackle the deficient rain condition in the district and ensure that agricultural power connection are not disconnected by the state utilities. 

PTI 

404 - Engineering: One test too many -bDeccan Chronicle

Engineering: One test too many
July 10, 2012
By Arun George | Sabloo Thomas
DC
Thiruvananthapuram

Students come out after this year’s entrance examination in Kochi. —DC

The suspense over the entrance test for admissions to Centrally-funded engineering colleges has finally ended with the Human Resources Development (HRD) ministry and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) arriving at a consensus over the new 'one nation, one test' format for seats in all Centrally-funded engineering colleges, including the 10,000 IIT seats that over five lakh students vie for every year.

But the formula arrived at after a debate of almost a year, is unlikely to have satisfied HRD minister Kapil Sibal who was rooting for a single test for admissions to all engineering colleges.

With states preferring to keep their options open still , the first edition of the common engineering entrance examination scheduled to roll out in 2013 will probably cover only Centrally-funded technical institutions like the 15 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 30 National Institutes of Technology (NIT), Indian Institutes of Information Technology, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and a few deemed universities, in its first year.

Also, giving in to the demand of IITs, an advance test will be held on a different day from the main for admissions to them, with only the top 1.50 lakh candidates from the latter qualifying to appear for it.

The HRD ministry has bowed to the IITs and dropped the idea of considering Class XII marks for admissions to them as well.

Instead only the top 20 percentile students of the respective Class XII board examinations will be allowed to take the proposed common engineering exam in 2013.

Educationist R V G Menon is all for selecting students with high percentile for the IIT entrance test as he feels this gives board examinations their due.
"Students today dont take their board examinations seriously enough because of the many coaching centres for IIT entrance tests in places like Kotta, Rajasthan and Delhi," he regrets.

Co-ordinator of the CBSE-ICSE Parents Forum Association, Dr N K Sanil Kumar, is however, worried the decision to allow only the top 20 percentile students of a board to appear for the IIT advanced test may act against the interest of students following the tougher CBSE and ICSE syllabi.
"But it is better than the mark normalisation process followed for some other entrance examinations, including some in Kerala, " he adds.

The rationale behind the common entrance exam for engineering colleges is to reduce both the psychological and financial stress on students because of multiple entrance tests and give greater importance to Class XII results.
Currently, there are 15 lakh engineering colleges across the country and more than 150 entrance tests are conducted for admission to them.
Besides the joint entrance examination conducted by the IITs and the AIEEE held by CBSE, all states have their own engineering examinations as do several deemed universities and private institutes.


Only top 20 percentile can appear for test
Revised Proposal

Following the opposition from the IIT Faculty Federation against considering the normalized percentile scores of class XII for shortlisting students for the JEE-Advanced test, the HRD ministry revised the proposal to allow only top 20 percentile students from each state board to appear for the screening test.
Other engineering colleges will use a 40:30:30 formula - with class XII board results counting for 40 per cent and the two stages of the entrance exam counting for 30 per cent each.

The new entrance format was to come into force from 2013. It will be restricted to central institutions as the states have not yet agreed to the common entrance test.


Initial Proposal
The initial proposal was to include normalised percentile scores of class XII board examination and JEE-Main test while shortlisting candidates for the JEE-Advanced test.

This allowed students with relatively lesser marks in board examinations to make up for the IITs by performing better in the screening test.
The new proposal is against the original aim of encouraging students to pay equal attention to the board examinations. The new proposal would deprive 80 percentile of students even an opportunity to appear for IITs.

353 - Firstpost India New IIT twist: Only board toppers can take entrance? by FP Politics Jun 21, 2012 - First Post

Firstpost India

New IIT twist: Only board toppers can take entrance?

by FP Politics Jun 21, 2012

A potential compromise formula ironed out by the Prime Minister with a IIT faculty federation may make the class XII exam scores even more important if carried out, with only the top 20 percent of the students from each educational board eligible to give the examination.

According to the new scheme, only the students in the top 20 percent of each educational board will be eligible to write the IIT entrance exam, the Hindustan Times reported today.

The new compromise formula would make the class XII exams even more important. Reuters

The new scheme was finalised during last week’s meeting between the Prime Minister and All India IIT Faculty Federation and is likely to be discussed by the various IIT senates and faculty associations of the engineering institutes this week, the report stated.

If implemented this entrance examination system would be a considerable departure from the originally proposed scheme under which class XII scores from across educational boards would be normalised and included along with the scores from the two entrance exams to be written.

The proposal which was to be implemented from 2013 has faced considerable opposition from IIT senates, faculty and alumni and as Firstpost has pointed out, had the Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal overriding the autonomy of the national engineering institutes.

Given that class XII results are usually announced after the IIT entrance examinations, it would mean students will be giving the entrance exam without knowing whether they have the marks that is required to see them through. If they don’t, it would mean the students could possibly even qualify through the IIT entrance exam only to find that they haven’t got the requisite marks to be eligible.

Another option is for the IITs to delay the start of their course in order to ensure that students who don’t have the requisite marks in their class XII exams don’t write the exam.

However, both options mean that the best students suited for the IITs would not necessarily be the ones chosen given the excessive importance given to class XII examinations. And if the objective is to reduce dependence on coaching classes for class XII,  it might just do the exact opposite.

Perhaps given the indecision and lack of consensus on this new entrance exam, the best solution might be for the HRD ministry to go back to the drawing board and delay the new  examination by a year to spare the lakhs of students writing the examination in 2013 the needless stress.