80 - Indian Institutes of Technology: What are the perceived benefits & costs of HRD Ministry's proposed move to conduct the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET), as a successor to the IIT- JEE? - Quora

Indian Institutes of Technology: What are the perceived benefits & costs of HRD Ministry's proposed move to conduct the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET), as a successor to the IIT- JEE? 

Parameters to be considered:
1. Student Quality
2. 10+2 exams
3. Industry/foreign University perception and others worth considering.

Repost 2 Answers Mayank Singhal, Spent 5 years in IIT Bombay pursuing ... 3 votes by Vishesh Vadhera, Dushyant Bansal, and Tarun Chitra

1. Student Quality
There are multiple things that would be considered if you want to define student quality. If in the definition, you are inherently counting people with zero coaching as of higher quality than the rest than sure, for a couple of years there might be coaching classes will see lesser selection rates. I do not agree to the sentiment (my views are biased, I attended Bansal Classes in my 11th and 12th class) but if will try to remember all the points that I have heard so far and discuss them individually:

a. Inherent intelligence vs trained intelligence - Coaching classes are often equated to mass production industries where the products, students, have no individuality - no brains or efforts of their own. They are trained to be good at solving JEE questions; they tend to have no or less theoretical knowledge; and hence they do not deserve to be in IIT as much as those who had no formal training. While I agree that I would not be sitting in a room at IITB had I not been through the factory, you have to give me more reason than just inherent qualities to have me agree that I didn't deserve IIT. Efforts: I was putting on an average 3 hours in coaching a day, 9+ hours problem solving. I never mugged up a single formula. In fact in Physics, our ringmaster would only write the initial assumptions and final formula and we were asked to derive it entirely on our own. JEE is not a standard that coaching classes had set - through coaching classes, we were only training ourselves to perform better at a standard we were cross checked again. Would you value a cricketer less if he had formal training? Or a musician? Why is that at academics, any formal training is considered impartial and derogatory? Inherently intelligent people will still get through, but trained intelligence - if bad, has to be pathetic everywhere.

b. Affordability - Argument: Coaching classes are expensive and hence only the rich can afford it. I will give you a different side of the same story. I am a from a small town - a couple of decent state board schools and one CBSE School - a Kendriya Vidhyalaya (Central School). Let us assume that averaging across boards works perfectly. Now let me throw some light on the standards of the KV that we had, highest percentage that we were aware of: 93% in CBSE from the school. Highest percentage in CBSE: 100% or 99%. If CBSE is such a good judge of inherent student quality, I am pretty sure that small towns like mine, will never see a student reach IITs because we didn't have access to good education. There of course are rich people in the town, people who could afford to send their kids to big schools in bigger cities. Unfortunately, they are already overcrowded. You need more than just money to get in, you need to be kids of influentuial people. Of course these schools produce well rounded personalities, they have resources to do so. My math teacher was also my English teach next year and Sports instructor the next. I am from a middle class family, not infinite resources to spare on donations and, sorry for my snark, in buying expensive clothes to fit in with peers. I am glad that I rather went to Kota, a factory. I lived on my own for two years, I had coaching - I had school, I had expectations and I was more determined to make something good out of my life because I could see others feeling the same. I probably have less IQ than those who supposed to be IITians, but I try to make it up by putting extra effort. If you increase the weight of CBSE marks in IIT selections I can only see more students from big famous schools in big cities, for they have the training to crack JEE - we from the small schools in smaller towns don't - even if we had the money.

c. CBSE is THE standard - No it isn't. It was boring and repetitive and uninspiring. I would rather give 10 times tougher JEE than CBSE because there is no novelty in CBSE. The formats are the same, the topics are the same - the questions are repeated so often that you can see "question banks to crack 60-70% in CBSE" in every bookshop in India. CBSE books are okay, but that doesn't mean that the exam is a standard. If the intentions are to check theoretical knowledge of students - don't do it through CBSE that can be easily rigged by hook or crook, but my JEE Mains as in the old days. I feared Mains because the questions required deep thought. We prepared for them even though they were scratched ages ago because the questions were thoughtful and challenging. CBSE was just another school exam that we had to give but we hated it.

 2. 10+2 As I mentioned in the earlier comment, CBSE is an uninspiring examination. When there are people scoring 100% in an examination and students are to be taught how to get that 1 extra mark by using a broader margin or a different pen - a saturation point has reached where students have to care more about presentation than content. The mess involved in generalizing standards across different state boards is obvious. Additionally, I know for a fact that there is corruption and cheating in board examinations - at least some of them. I would trust a random lottery more than boards.

3. Perception - the brand image JEE was a standard. Industry knew that the exams were tough and doing well in them required at least some basic knowledge of the subject. On the other hand, it really doesn't matter how much the student has scored in JEE in how the student will perform in IIT and after graduation. There is definitely some correlation in Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) and performance in JEE, but I think that it is rather weak. Everyone gets a fresh start in IIT. There is change in their hobbies, interests and behaviour. I see no reason for industry/rest-of-the-academia to suddenly see a increase or decrease in quality of people because of changed selection.Via Kiran Kadav.

1+ Comments • Repost • 21:40 on Sun Apr 01 2012

 Ashish Jain 
1. If the pattern and style of questions is changed considerably - and only this criteria is considered ignoring other factors - the student quality, at least initially, will be high. This is because coaching centers need 1 to 2 years to get used to the new pattern and to drill the techniques into students. Thus those students who know their fundamentals well and how to apply it will be at an advantage.

 2. This is a big negative point. Firstly there is no level playing field - it is easier to score in state boards than central. Students might prefer to take up 11th, 12th in easier state boards than central boards. Also, now every student will be forced to do rote learning due to its high percentage of importance. This will be an additional burden on the students.

 3. This will take some time to establish and is too dynamic to be predicted now. Some of the top NITs are better than the newer IITs but overall the IIT tag has more respect, if not value. Also currently the NITs have 50% local state reservation, I'm not sure what happens to that. If even that is removed, there will be a high degree of flux among the NITs and IITs in establishing a new college ranking

79 - Exams in South Korea The one-shot society - The Economist

Exams in South Korea - The Economist

The one-shot society

The system that has helped South Korea prosper is beginning to break down

Dec 17th 2011 | SEOUL | from the print edition          

ON NOVEMBER 10th South Korea went silent. Aircraft were grounded. Offices opened late. Commuters stayed off the roads. The police stood by to deal with emergencies among the students who were taking their university entrance exams that day.

Every year the country comes to a halt on the day of the exams, for it is the most important day in most South Koreans’ lives. The single set of multiple-choice tests that students take that day determines their future. Those who score well can enter one of Korea’s best universities, which has traditionally guaranteed them a job-for-life as a high-flying bureaucrat or desk warrior at a chaebol (conglomerate). Those who score poorly are doomed to attend a lesser university, or no university at all. They will then have to join a less prestigious firm and, since switching employers is frowned upon, may be stuck there for the rest of their lives. Ticking a few wrong boxes, then, may mean that they are permanently locked out of the upper tier of Korean society.

Making so much depend on an exam has several advantages for Korea. It is efficient: a single set of tests identifies intelligent and diligent teenagers, and launches them into society’s fast stream. It is meritocratic: poor but clever Koreans can rise to the top by studying very, very hard. The exam’s importance prompts children to pay attention in class and parents to hound them about their homework; and that, in turn, ensures that Korea’s educational results are the envy of the world. The country is pretty much the leading nation in the scoring system run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2009 it came fourth after Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong, but those are cities rather than full-sized countries.

Korea’s well-educated, hard-working population has powered its economic miracle. The country has risen from barefoot to broadband since 1960, and last year, despite the global slowdown, its economy grew by 6.2%. In the age of the knowledge economy, education is economic destiny. So the system has had far-reaching and beneficial consequences.

Yet it also has huge costs. For a start, high school is hell. Two months before the day of his exams Kim Min-sung, a typical student, was monosyllabic and shy. All the joy seemed to have been squeezed out of him, to make room for facts. His classes lasted from 7am until 4pm, after which he headed straight for the library until midnight. He studied seven days a week. “You get used to it,” he mumbled.
His parents have spent much of Min-sung’s life worrying about his education. His father, a teacher, taught him how to manage his time: to draw up a plan and stick to it, so as to complete as much revision as possible without collapsing exhausted on the desk. His mother kept him fuelled with “delicious food” and urged him to “study more, but not too much”.

Min-sung says he doesn’t particularly want to go to university, but he feels “social pressure” to do so. He dreams of getting a job as an agent for sports stars, which would not obviously require a university degree. But he reluctantly accepts that in Korea, “You can’t get [any] job without a degree.”

Min-sung’s happiest time was playing football with his friends during the lunch hour. Every child in his school dashes to the cafeteria when the bell goes and gulps down the noodles like a wolf in a hurry. The quicker they eat, the more precious minutes of freedom each day will contain.

A poll by CLSA, a stockbroker, found that 100% of Korean parents want their children to go to university. Such expectations can be stressful. In one survey a fifth of Korean middle and high school students said they felt tempted to commit suicide. In 2009 a tragic 202 actually did so. The suicide rate among young
Koreans is high: 15 per 100,000 15-24-year-olds, compared with ten Americans, seven Chinese and five Britons. Min-sung’s older sister, Kim Jieun, who took the exams a few years ago, recalls: “I thought of emigrating, I hated the education system so much.”

As more and more students cram into universities, the returns to higher education are falling. Because all Korean parents want their children to go to university, most do. An incredible 63% of Koreans aged 25-34 are college graduates—the highest rate in the OECD. Since 1995 there has been a staggering 30 percentage-point increase in the proportion of Koreans who enter university to pursue academic degrees, to 71% in 2009.

This sounds great, but it is unlikely that such a high proportion of young Koreans will actually benefit from chasing an academic degree, as opposed to a vocational qualification. A survey in August found that, four months after leaving university, 40% of graduates had not yet found jobs.

Unemployment represents a poor return on what for most families is a huge financial sacrifice. Not only is college itself expensive; so is getting in. Parents will do anything to help their children pass the college entrance exam. Many send them to private crammers, known as hagwon, after school. Families in Seoul spend a whopping 16% of their income on private tuition.


Seoul children

Korea’s rigid social model aggravates the nation’s extreme demographic problems. Korean women have stopped having anywhere near enough babies to provide the country with the workforce it will need in the future.
Since Korean women started entering the labour force in large numbers, the opportunity costs of having children have risen sharply. The workplace makes few allowances for women who want to take a career break. If a woman drops off the career track for a couple of years, Korean firms are far less likely than Western ones to welcome her back. And if a firm does take back a working mother, she will face a stark choice: drop off the fast track or work long and inflexible hours.

Flexitime and working from home are frowned on. This makes it staggeringly hard to combine work and child care, especially since Korean mothers are expected to bear most of the responsibility for pushing their children to excel academically.

The direct costs of raising children who can pass that all-important exam are also hefty. Sending one child to a $1,000-a-month hagwon is hard enough. Paying for three is murder. Parents engage in an educational arms race. Those with only one child can afford higher fees, so they bid up the price of the best hagwon. This gives other parents yet another incentive to have fewer children.
Since 1960 the fertility rate in Korea has fallen faster than nearly anywhere on earth, from six children per woman to 1.15 in 2009. That is a recipe for demographic collapse. If each Korean woman has only one baby, each generation will be half as large as the one that came before. Korea will age and shrink into global irrelevance.

Small wonder the government is worried. President Lee Myung-bak talks of the need to create a “fair society”. That means, among other things, changing attitudes to educational qualifications. He says he wants employers to start judging potential employees by criteria other than their alma mater. In September he promised that the government would start hiring more non-graduates. “Merit should count more than academic background,” he said.


The forces for change
The president is also urging Korean firms to recruit people with a wider range of experiences. Some have agreed to do so. In September, for example, Daewoo Shipbuilding said it would start hiring high-school graduates and set up an institution to train them. But the managers who run big Korean companies are mostly from the generation in which academic background was everything, so they may be reluctant to change.

The government is trying to reduce the leg-up that private tuition gives to the children of the well-off. Since 2008 local authorities have been allowed to limit hagwon hours and fees. Freelance snoops, known as hagparazzi, visit hagwon with hidden cameras to catch them charging too much or breaking a local curfew. The hagparazzi are rewarded with a share of any fines imposed on errant educational establishments. Yet still the hagwon proliferate. By the government’s count, there are nearly 100,000.

The other force for change is Korea’s young people. Many are questioning whether the old rules about how to live one’s life will make them happy. Kang Jeong-im, a musician, puts it bluntly: “I think it’s difficult to live the way you want to in South Korea.” High school was the worst, she recalls: “We were like memorising machines. Almost every day, I’d fall asleep at my desk. The teacher would shout at me or throw chalk.”

Ms Kang made her parents proud by getting into Yonsei, one of Korea’s leading universities. But once there, she rebelled. She hung out with radicals and read Marx and Foucault. She went on protest marches, waving a placard, inhaling tear gas and almost getting herself arrested. “I kinda enjoyed it,” she says, “I felt I was doing something really important.”

She learned to play the guitar. She wrote a thesis on female Korean rock musicians that involved a lot of “field studies”: ie, going to concerts and talking to cool people. She even interviewed the singer of 3rd Line Butterfly, a group she loved.

She formed a band with a male friend. They played some gigs in small venues, but eventually he took a full-time job at a news agency and no longer had time for rocking. So Ms Kang started a solo career, writing songs and performing them herself, using the stage name “Flowing”. She is working on an album, she says, and performing in clubs. Her parents are not exactly thrilled; they want her to find a respectable job and get married. Their friends and relatives ask: “What is your daughter doing?” and “Why do you let her live like this?”

Ms Kang cannot live on what she makes as a musician, so she takes temporary jobs. She is one of many. Among the young, the proportion of jobs that are part-time has exploded from 8% in 2000 to 23% in 2010; the proportion of workers under 25 on temporary contracts has leapt from zero to 28%. This is partly because cash-strapped companies are backing away from the old tradition of lifetime employment, but also because many young people do not want to be chained to the same desk for 30 years.

According to TNS, a market-research firm, Koreans are markedly more fed up with the companies they work for than people in other countries. Only half would recommend them as a good place to work, compared to three-quarters of TNS’s global sample. Only 48% think they receive suitable recognition, as individuals, for their work, compared with 68% of workers in supposedly collectivist China. Only Japanese workers are more disgruntled.

Despite these gripes, 79% of Korean workers expect still to be working for the same employer in a year’s time. TNS speculates that this attitude reflects the difficulty of switching employers rather than genuine loyalty; it talks of “captive” employees.

Such averages mask wide variation, of course. Some highflying Korean salarymen feel intensely loyal to their employers and are prepared to slave long hours to help them conquer new markets. But this inner circle is quite small: the chaebol employ only 10% of the workforce. And the rigid way that chaebol tend to seek talent—recruiting only from prestigious universities and promoting only from within—means that, as well as failing to get the best out of Korean women, they miss clever people who are not much good at exams and late developers whose talents blossom in their 20s or 30s. They also shunt older people into retirement when they still have much to offer. (The chaebol tend to promote by seniority, which sounds good for older employees but isn’t. There are only a few jobs at the top, so when you reach the age at which you might become a senior manager, you are either promoted or pensioned off.)

Parents praying for their children’s success in exams

Subversive ideas from abroad
It is still rare for a Korean who is clever enough to reach the top by the conventional route to choose a different one; but it is becoming less so. One fertile source of subversion is the Koreans who have studied overseas. Some 13% of Korean tertiary students study abroad, according to the OECD, a higher proportion than in any other rich country. In recent years, many have come home, not least because the American government, in a fit of self-destructive foolishness, made it much harder after September 11th 2001 for foreign students to work in America after they graduate. A survey by Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University found that most foreign students at American universities feared they would not be able to obtain a work visa. And since the application process is long and humiliating, many do not even bother to try. America’s loss is Korea’s (and India’s, and China’s) gain.

Returnees are typically bright, and less beholden to tradition than their stay-at-home peers. For example, Richard Choi, whose father was a globe-trotting manager for a chaebol, attended a British school in Hong Kong and learned about America’s start-up culture while studying biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Having returned to Korea, he has devised a business model in which customers receive store credits from merchants for recommending their products to their friends. “Let’s say you think this pie is good,” says Mr Choi, pointing at a chocolate confection your correspondent has just bought. “And you tell your friends about it [via a smartphone app developed by Mr Choi’s company, Spoqa]. And they come to this café and spend money. Then you get store credits.”
If this model will work anywhere, it will work in Seoul, figures Mr Choi. The Korean capital is densely populated and splendidly connected: nearly everyone with spare cash has a smartphone. And if it does not, he can probably get a good job, he thinks. But he has to hurry. Even with his skills, he reckons that no chaebol would hire him once he is over 30.

A few locally educated Koreans are also challenging the system. Charles Pyo, a young internet entrepreneur, borrowed his mother’s credit card when he was 14 and started a business helping people set up websites. His parents did not approve; they thought he should be studying instead. But then they saw all the money coming in, and relented. He made $200,000 in three years.
He then won a place at Yonsei University. He took the exam like anyone else, but what really counted was his interview, in which he argued that he had exceptional talents. Korean universities have traditionally spurned interviews, but the government is now urging them to select many more of their students this way.

 

  On the ladder to prosperity

While at university, Mr Pyo teamed up with a former hacker, Kim Hyun-chul. (In his teens, Mr Kim set off cyber-terror alarm bells by infecting hundreds of thousands of computers with a virus that deleted files on his birthday. He was caught, but he was too young to send to prison.) Now a reformed character, he helped Mr Pyo start another company, Wizard Works, that supplies “widgets”—little packets of software that make corporate websites work better—and is about to start selling “cloud computing” apps for smartphones. Still only 25, Mr Pyo has now started yet another company, Rubicon Games, that designs online social games.

Mr Pyo says that what he does is much more fun than being a salaryman. But it is hard for him to recruit good staff. People assume that if you don’t work for a chaebol, it must be because you are not bright enough, he gripes. “They say: ‘Why should I work for you? You’re not Samsung.’”

Mr Choi has the same problem. “Older people look at my business card and say: ‘What’s this?’ Younger people admire the fact that I am doing something no one else is doing. But given the choice of working for me or Samsung, people are naturally inclined to go with a big company.”

Mr Pyo believes that Korea would be a happier place if more people had the courage to strike out on their own. But talented students “care too much about other people’s expectations,” he sighs. “They don’t want to fall behind their friends. They fear that if they do something different they might be viewed as a failure.”


The Land of Miracles must loosen up
The Korean economic boom was built on hard work, benign demography (a bulge of working-age Koreans between 1970 and 1990) and plenty of opportunities to catch up with richer countries. But the world, and Korea, have changed.
Korea is rich, so it can no longer grow fast by copying others. It cannot remain dynamic with an ageing, shrinking workforce. It cannot become creative with a school system that stresses rote learning above thinking. And its people cannot realise their full potential in a society where they get only one shot at doing well in life, and it comes when they are still teenagers. To remain what one writer called “The Land of Miracles”, Korea will have to loosen up, and allow many routes to success.

78 - IIT JEE Exam On Way, Weightage of 40% for Class 12 - ONE INDIA

IIT JEE Exam On Way, Weightage of 40% for Class 12

Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 12:14 [IST]

A common aptitude-cum-advanced knowledge test will replace the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) in 2013. Test cores will have 60% weight in deciding admissions; school board marks will have 40%. Test and board scored will determine admissions to all centrally funded engineering institutions.

The Common Entrance Exam, planned as a SAT-type test, is likely to be held online from 2014 and could be given twice a year, said the highly placed sources. The paper test is likely to stay on until the online system stabilizes. The NIT council has already approved the new format. All the IIT's have also agreed and are likely to give their format approval at a meeting of the Joint Admission Board on February 18.

The human resource development (HRD) ministry has formed a committee of IIT directors and CBSE officials to work out the modalities before the meeting. The ministry has been working on a common entrance format for over a year, with the aim of reducing the stress of taking multiple tests for students just out of class 12, checking the coaching business which promotes learning by rote, and reinforcing the importance of school education.

Mr.Kapil Sibal, HRD Minister has plans to take the proposal to the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) to help build acceptability and consensus for the Common Entrance Test among state governments.

The source said “The common entrance exam will have two elements- simple aptitude testing to access scholastic levels, and an advanced section which a student can choose to either continue with or can skip off”.

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77 - Common engineering entrance examination from 2013 - INDIA TODAY

Common engineering entrance examination from 2013 

Ritika Chopra  New Delhi, January 27, 2012 | UPDATED 13:36 IST

The first edition of the common engineering entrance examination scheduled to roll out in 2013 will probably cover only centrally-funded technical institutions in its first year.

In other words, just 15 IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), 30 NITs (National Institutes of Technology), 4 IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology), IISERs (Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research) and a few deemed universities will fall under its ambit.

Currently, there are 15 lakh engineering colleges across the country and more than 150 entrance tests are conducted for admission to these institutes.
The HRD ministry has held three meetings since last September to work on the final format of the examination, which will be jointly conducted by the IITs and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).

But Sibal and his ministry are tightlipped about the details. "We are working on it and an announcement will be made in February," the minister said.
However, those who attended the last meeting have told Mail Today that the examination, in its first year, will probably be meant for engineering programmes of only central institutions.

"All our discussions till now have been mainly pertaining to the IITs, NITs, IIITs and centrally funded institutes. The test for the first year will probably just cover them or be a merger of the IIT-JEE and the AIEEE," an official who was present at the last meeting, held over a week ago, said on the condition of anonymity.

The rationale behind the common entrance exam for engineering is to reduce psychological and financial stress on students because of multiple entrance tests and give more importance to Class XII results than private coaching.

"A student's class XII Boards results will be taken into account at the time of admission," Sibal had said about the test in September last year.

Currently, apart from the joint entrance examination conducted by the IITs and the AIEEE conducted by the CBSE, all the states have their own engineering examinations. Many deemed universities and private institutes also hold their own tests.

"Whether the states will join the common test in the first year has not been discussed. I guess the idea is to first introduce the exam with the central institutes on board and then have the state governments and private players join it eventually," said the official.

The HRD ministry is likely to get the states on board before a formal notification on the test is issued next month.

"A meeting is scheduled with all state education ministers on February 15. We will try to get them on board. We are hoping that at least the seven states that subscribe to the AIEEE score will join the common entrance test," an HRD ministry source said.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/common-engineering-entrance-examination/1/170778.html

76 - Indian B.Tech Degrees To Be Recognized Globally. Hopefully. - CRAZY ENGINEEERS

Indian B.Tech Degrees To Be Recognized Globally. Hopefully.

Posted by Kaustubh Katdare on March 27, 2012

The National Board of Accreditation (NBA), under the aegis of All India Council for Technical Education aka AICTE hopes to become a permanent member of the Washington Accord in June 2013. India has the provisional membership since 2007. If NBA gets accepted in the Washington Accord, the engineering B.Tech degrees offered in India will be recognized on a par with those from United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand and few other nations.  This implies that it’s going to be lot easier for Indian engineers to find jobs abroad. The crucial step in becoming the full member is to have the Indian accreditation system audited by the Washington Accord and India is yet to invite the authorities. Hu Hanrahan, who chairs the Washington Accord is in India to attend the first World Summit on Accreditation 2012 did not comment on the expected timeline for India to become the full member.

Even if India is granted the membership; TOI believes that approximately 20% of the 4000-5000 engineering colleges in India will be recognized. HRD minister Kapil Sibal says that his ministry has proposed a legislation to make it compulsory for every higher educational institute to be accredited and hopes that the bill carry through in this session of the Parliament.
We are keeping our opinion reserved until we hear further developments on this news. We’d however like to hear from our readers their opinion & views on NBA applying for Washington Accord membership. Do you think NBA is going in the right direction?

75 - IIT-JEE: IITs unhappy with changes - INDIAN EXPRESS

IIT-JEE: IITs unhappy with changes

Editorial Team, 31, March

The replacement of Indian Institute of Technology’s Joint Entrance Exam (IIT-JEE) with Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET) is raising questions among IITs.

IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur senates recently wrote to HRD ministry asking to consider their suggestions regarding the replacement of the entrance test. IIT Madras Faculty Association has conveyed similar views to other IITs. Not only have the IITs doubted the early and hurried decision of replacement of IIT-JEE but also the format of the new exam ISEET.

The IITs welcome the decision of bringing reforms in the current entrance exam but they want a say in the process of implementation of ISEET.

The government has proposed to change the IIT-JEE format by introducing two-part objective-type tests and giving weightage to Class XII marks.

The Ministry plans to hold ISEET from 2013 which will replace the existing IIT-JEE and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE). This would serve as a single national entrance exam for admission to engineering and science courses in institutes such as the 15 IITs, 30 NITs and other prestigious technical institutes.


Image courtesy: photos.com

74 - IIT's Stand On To Play A Bigger Role In ISEET-2013 - ONE INDIA EDUCATION

IIT's Stand On To Play A Bigger Role In ISEET-2013

Friday, March 30, 2012, 12:15 [IST

The Indian Institute of Technology are presently claiming that they too want to take part in ISEET 2012, the new entrance examination proposed by the centre to replace IITJEE. While the members of IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur board have appealed to the HRD ministry for considering their suggestions, IIT Madras Faculty Association has expressed solidarity on the same issue in front of the other IIT's.

The Sources from IIT Madras Faculty association have revealed that ministry did not even bother to consult them before proposing the changes. The association also revealed that although they too were in the favor of including class 12 marks in the admission process and felt that the formula derived by the Indian Statistical Institute for generalizing class 12 marks was quite fair.

However, the entire IIT community is still unable to understand why the HRD Ministry is introducing the new exam in 2013 in a hurry without considering the pros and cons of the change. IIT Kanpur academic also revealed that the entire proposal of ISEET is sketchy and no official documents have been sent to IIT's till now regarding ISEET.

Moreover, whatever the IIT's are currently inferring about ISEET is only from a presentation once made by HRD as well as media. The entire IIT community is unhappy with the whole issue and wants to atleast have a say in the entire change process.

73 - Giving weightage to standard 12 marks is the step in the right direction says Professor IdiChandy

Giving weightage to standard 12 marks is the step in the right direction says Professor IdiChandy

Professor Idichandy is the former dean of IIT Madras and convener of the Chandy committee report for suggesting reforms in Joint entrance exams for IIT's which led to changes in the admission criteria for IIT's in 2006. Professor Idichandy supports the greater emphasis to standard 12th marks which gives greater emphasis to the students academic performance in school. GyanCentral spoke to professor Idichandy to get more insights about the recent changes in IIT admission process and improvements in engineering education in India.

Do you think the move to give 40% weightage to standard 12th marks for admission in IIT is a step in the right direction?

Yes. Since 2004, we were advocating this step to give importance to school education. Over the years all stake holders in school education came to the conclusion that what they need is a pass in the higher secondary and what matters is a rank in the entrance examinations of various institutions and states. None can blame the students or parents for this lopsided priority, as 12 years of schooling had no relevance in their admission to higher studies except perhaps in Arts and Science Colleges. We have witnessed principals and teachers lamenting that all their good students are in the coaching institutions and not in schools.

How will the IIT's normalize scores across boards (different boards have varied difficulty level)?

While a single board examination with a common core syllabus shall go a long way in removing this apprehension, it may be a very long term dream but achievable. The school boards are now realizing that a common syllabus is an important step in the interest of everyone and what is required is political will for its implementation across the country. As far as the normalization of marks in different school boards is concerned, the Indian Statistical Institute, based on the analysis of the data of number of years of board examination suggested a scheme of normalization which I am told is a foolproof. I am sure the method suggested by ISI will find acceptance with all.

In any case, normalization of ranks across school boards is nothing new in India as there were Institutes following this practice for admission yesteryear's. States which have done away with Entrance Examination are also practicing normalization of marks/ranks.

What are the changes you would like to see in the IIT admission process?

Basically three major changes:

1. A single national exam/test for admission to all professional colleges including IITs
2. Giving adequate weightage for the overall performance in the school and not in just Sciences and Mathematics
3. Allotment of branch/discipline based on the performance in the first three semesters in the respective institutions. The ranking based on the weighted score of the test and the school performance may be used for selecting Institutes and not branches of study.

Do you agree with Mr Narayana Murthy's statement that the standard of IIT students has lowered due to training institutes? If yes, How do you recommend improving the same?

I would tend to agree with Mr Narayana Murthy because the whole exercise of revamping the admission procedure to premier institutions is an acceptance of the fact that something is wrong.

The changes that MHRD is trying to implement in the admission procedure certainly will have effect on the quality of inputs but one should watch and monitor the processes in the next few years. My suggestion for branch allotment needs to be debated and implemented as at the end of three semesters of study, the students will be adequately informed to make the choice judiciously and based on aptitude. While these reforms are in progress, our school education and our attitude to teaching and evaluation should go in for major changes shifting the emphasis from rote learning to more of analytical and problem solving skills. Best communication practices and development of soft skills also should form part of school education. Unless these are done, the quality of inputs to Institutions of higher learning will not improve.

Are you satisfied with the research being conducted presently in IIT's? How can the research facilities be improved?

What is the yardstick for evaluating the research output of our Institutions? Are we providing our Scientists and Researchers with a level playing field? We have done very well in all fields where the goals were defined, like in ISRO, DRDO, Atomic Energy. Team work and well defined goals made all the differences in these institutions. Researches were for accomplishing targets and goals. This model cannot be compared with the research at a more fundamental levels happening in some of our research institutions. Good team work, critical mass of Scientists and Researchers in thrust and emerging areas shall go a long way in accomplishing our targets. We are in the right track and for a young democratic country like ours goal-oriented research may be one of the ways to achieve national goals.

Recently the IIM's have focused on greater diversity in a batch. Do you think the IIT's should also follow a similar path?

Diversity is already there in IITs and it evolved with time. Nevertheless, IITs can be better off, if they can improve the gender ratio amongst students and faculty in favour of women. It is easy said than done. One of the expected outcomes of taking the school performance into reckoning for admissions in premier institutions is an improvement in the number of girl students.

Having stated so, I am not very sure whether steps to artificially introduce diversity will produce the desired results.

You had strongly advocated not assigning branches on the basis of AIR. How can the system change? Do you think majority of the students will be inclined towards the most lucrative branch if he/she is given 3 semesters to decide the same?

Many of us strongly feel the same way. In fact I am told that five IITs agreed in principle to adopt the change though a consensus still eludes. At present the Institutes and branches are allotted based on the rank in JEE which in itself is an aberration in the student's overall scholastic performance. As of now the aptitude is not the deciding factor in the selection of branch but societal pressure, herd mentality and of course perceived lucrative placement. Three semesters of exposure to courses, we feel, will prepare the students to take a well informed decision about their career.

Your thoughts on the general engineering branch and its advantages?

I think the IIT system has matured enough to introduce paradigm shifts in branches of study depending on the demands of the time and the aptitude of the students. Such bold experiments need encouragement.

The AIEEE has a computer based version. Do you think the combined test will also have a computer based test version?

The number of students taking the proposed combined examination may not be significantly different from the number appearing for AIEEE today. Therefore a partial computer based test version practiced now can continue and may eventually give way to an online examination provided we create sufficient infrastructure and implement novel testing methods. After all, the exam is a test for admission to begin a professional career and not an end in itself.

What are the issues facing Indian engineering education today. What steps would you like to see to resolve them?

Today more than a million students enrol for higher technical education. There are Institutes like IITs at one end of the spectrum and Institutions without adequate infrastructure and faculty at the other end. The quality of engineers coming out from such a wide spectrum of Institutions can be best left to the imagination of the readers. If there is a widespread belief that only 10 percent of them are employable, it cannot be found fault with. The major challenge therefore is to train the available faculty and find ways and means of attracting more faculty for all Institutions. NPTEL can be a solution if adequate workshops are arranged for teachers to teach how to use the NPTEL material for the benefit of the students.

Teaching and research as a preferred career option must be "sold" to our students by encouraging the bright students to take up higher studies and later teaching and research. Rather than leaving everything to IITs and IISC and a few good institutions around the country to find solutions for all the ills facing technical education, there must be separate institutions to train a community of teachers at all levels. While there is a talk of skill development being a part of school education, why not teaching as a skill being imparted to students at an early stage at different levels? It is not a very easy task but should be a National Mission.
________________________________

IIT panels lie dormant to overhauling

New Delhi: Kapil Sibal, the Human Resource Development (HRD) minister had in October 2009, formed a series of committees during a meeting of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Council - the highest decision making body, to look into the functioning of various IITs which now lies dormant.

It has been reported that various reforms, which were to be inculcated by these committees at the IITs, are on a standstill since its formation.

A committee, on which it was entrusted to recommend the new cut-off for the IIT's Joint Entrance Exam (IIT-JEE) and new curricula, is yet to meet.

The panel, which was assigned the reformations, comprises of secretary of science and technology, secretary of biotechnology and director general of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

It was expected that this panel would submit its report within three months while suggesting reforms in the IIT-JEE but it was not.

Most of the reforms, assigned to two other exam panels still lie unimplemented.

A panel, for example, set up under IIT-Madras deputy director, V.G. Idichandy in 2008 suggested scrapping JEE and considering school marks. The council, under former atomic energy chief Anil Kakodar, formed a second, five-member panel outlining a vision for the future of IITs.

The panel is expected to submit its report within six months. It has been four months now, the scenario is clear with the panel not having even met since then.

Following a Right To Information (RTI) exposure of the faculty selection in the previous JEEs, the reform process at the IITs, both for JEE and selection procedure, needs an urgent change.

The RTI exposure, which was filed by an IIT-Kharagpur professor Rajeev Kumar revealed that 994 candidates who were denied admissions in the year 2006 might have made it to the premier institutes had the IITs followed their stated method of determining subject cut-offs.

Although the IITs have revised their cut-off formula thrice but the need of a more transparency persists.

72 - The IIT Braindrain - The Fifth Estate

The IIT Braindrain

28 MARCH 2012 NO COMMENT

Jayant Thatte (3rd year B.Tech, EE) examines how academic life at IITs correlate to students taking up engineering as a career after graduation. The article features extensive inputs from the faculty of his department and from current undergraduates.

March, 2012: A few months ago, there was an article in The New York Times probing into the reasons causing most science major students to lose their interest in their field by the time they graduate. In context, the situation here in India isn’t very different. Narayana Murthy’s recent comments on the falling quality of students aside, today a great many IIT graduates go for non-engineering jobs such as management, banking and civil services. This might indicate that present students may not be as enthusiastic about engineering as anticipated.

Prof. Nitin Chandrachoodan, of EE department, suggests that students taking non-core options is not necessarily a bad thing: it is always beneficial if someone with a good knowledge of Engineering takes up management or government roles, where they can use their engineering knowledge to better understand technical problems. Nonetheless, given the advantage enjoyed by non-core firms in placements, a question commonly voiced is: Why can’t the current system ignite a passion among its students about the engineering they learn in their four or five years?

Today, a vast number of students write JEE after their matriculation irrespective of their interest, having led to a boom in the number of coaching centres, which start training students for the ‘JEE hurdle’ from as early as high school. Therefore, entrants into IIT undergraduate programs are not necessarily those with the greatest interest in engineering.

On the other hand, the placement scenario is tipped in favour of non-core sector, which pays much more than any core company or research institute. The world runs on money, then, it may be argued, why not IITians? Given the question it may not be surprising that CAT is a very popular option among today’s students.

This article investigates the role of the curriculum in shaping the interests and priorities of IIT undergraduates.

Exam Fever

Interviews of several students, from freshmen to final years, have revealed that on an average, the enthusiasm towards the core courses drops as the student climbs into higher semesters. Inputs by students suggest that over-burdening and inefficient course structure may be contributing to this ubiquitous phenomenon.

“Every third year student of my department writes over three dozen exams per semester (counting weekly tests), which contribute to the final grades. 

Considering that the number of working days per semester is about 75, I feel that the exam frequency is too high.”, expressed a student.

However, many students and faculty members are of the opinion that periodic evaluation is, in fact, required since it helps the students to keep up with the class. “We all know that we all need to be pushed to do work, otherwise we will only laze out. For the same reason, I feel that continuous evaluation is necessary.” another student claims.

Prof. Chandrachoodan remarks: “I think a major problem here is that students don’t really understand the kind of load students in universities in, say, the US undergo. A look at the final year projects at a university like Purdue indicates that undergraduates there are under a considerably heavier load than over here. The whole idea of continuous assessment is not something unique here, it is a standard practice in most foreign universities.”

Prof. Anjan Chakravorty of the same department expressed that there is a need to strike the right balance. “An effective solution would be to increase the number of quizzes in the academic calendar, but at the same time ensure that no professor takes exams other than the scheduled ones.” He also added: “In today’s system, everyone concentrates on getting highest level of performance, and pushes students through too many hurdles. This deteriorates the enjoyment factor in education. Students should be allowed to learn at their own pace, directing more effort towards learning fundamentals.”

“The issue with the current system is that placements depend heavily on CGPA. Hence, the students are in a race to get good grades in every course. Most of the students before coming here are used to being exceptionally good in all subjects in their schools. They try to replicate the same here, which leads to over-burdening.” he adds.

Attendance Rules

The education at IITs has gone from an informal system with personal attention to a stricter, more rigorous system. Attendance rules in several IITs highlight this aspect. In Madras, for instance, the minimum attendance rule has consistently increased, beginning with no attendance restrictions and then going to 55, 75 and since last few years, 85%. Stricter rules don’t necessarily imply boost in sincerity or enthusiasm, students claim.

“I feel that the courses should be made more interesting rather than imposing stricter attendance rules. Currently, several students attend classes just to meet attendance requirements.”, says a student. Several faculty members are, in fact complaining regarding the falling attentiveness and eagerness of students during the lectures. “Students no longer seem to be interested in what is going on in the class. This was not the case until a few years ago and the situation is getting worse. It is an issue of concern and we are working on how to improve courses and teaching methods so that they appeal to students.” said Prof. Devendra Jalihal of the EE department.

An article published in The Fifth Estate in 2011 concerned life of foreign exchange students in the campus. This articles quotes exchange students, with similar views: “Courses are quite tough to handle”, “Continuous evaluation is deterrent, and the competitive atmosphere only worsens it”, “Students don’t get enough time to indulge in their interests and passions”.

What’s Taught In Courses

A fourth year integrated M.Sc. Physics student from IIT Kanpur points out some issues directly related to his courses: “They are mostly theoretical in nature with little practical implications being introduced. So students cannot relate the course with its possible uses, and they may eventually lose interest.”

“Mech department in IIT-B has lots of projects continuously going on. So students always find something related to their department to invest time in.” said a second year student of mech department, IIT Bombay. This practical experience, he claims, has helped the mech students to have a sustained interest in their department.

Prof. Jalihal suggested that redundancy and repetitions can be eliminated if a single professor takes all related courses in successive semesters, for a particular class. He also complained that many times faculty do not get adequate feedback from the students. Prof. Chakravorty responds regarding the theoretical nature of courses by noting that “Theory may not always be fascinating, but is essential to become a good engineer. If theory is not taught in educational institutes, students won’t get a chance to learn it anywhere else.”

“Most of what is taught in a course is taught for a reason. At that point, the students may not find the connection with the industry, but they should trust the teacher. Or, they can just search the net to find out how the topic fits into the bigger picture.” said Prof. Shanthi Pavan, of the EE department.

Active Learning

Most of the IITs are already probing into the causes of declining academic motivation among students and taking measures and introducing reforms for the better. Many faculty members are now stressing on active learning as a means to keep up the students’ attention in courses.

Prof. Chakravorty elucidates a particular idea: “The professor teaches fundamentals for about half a semester. For the remaining part, students are divided into groups and assigned particular topics on which they are expected to do research and read up for about a month. After this, new groups of four each are formed by taking one member from each of the original groups. Within a group, one each member has mastered a different topic. They spend the last month of the semester teaching these to each other. In this method, since students actively participate in learning as well as teaching process, their fundamentals become clear.”

The Placement Soup

The system in IITs that governs placement, particularly sequential slotting preference, have also been put under the microscope. The first couple of days are allocated mostly to non-core companies including investment banks which offer very high pay packages, while the core companies usually start only on second or third day.

As a result, core companies which come on later days get a lower quality of students than what they expect, leading to an impression that quality of engineers graduating from IITs is not up to the mark. Prof. Jalihal suggested that the system should be modified so that each department is able to suggest two or three core companies that should come on the first couple of days of placement season, in addition to the regular non-core ones.

Prof. Shanthi Pavan gave it from the student’s perspective: “There are just too many job positions being offered that require no engineering expertise at all. A student who acquires more knowledge in his field most often ends up with a lower salary core job as against his friend, who may not have learnt anything at all in his department, but is doing a non-core job. So, what motivation do the students have to learn engineering?”

It is not attempted here to give a bottom-line solution to systemic problems in IITs today. Observations above suggest that streamlining education for bettering the student experience is a topical subject, deserving careful planning from the administration and inputs from the students. At the same time it is reassuring to note that alumni continue to do remarkably well in the non-engineering fields that they have entered, leaving a question of whether the IITs could be platform for a broader social role than they were originally intended to be.

71 - IITs want say in new test format - TOI

IITs want say in new test format

TNN | Mar 29, 2012, 04.31AM IST

CHENNAI: The Indian Institutes of Technology want a say in the new entrance examination that the Centre has proposed to replace the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination in 2013.

While members of the senate of IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Delhi have written to the HRD ministry asking that their suggestions be taken into consideration, the IIT-Madras Faculty Association has sent its views to other IITs to express solidarity on the issue. Some of these academics say they understand the intentions for the change, but charge the ministry with rushing through with the change without considering the views of stakeholders.

"We were never consulted on the proposed change. We are for the inclusion of higher secondary marks in the admission process and feel that the marking formula proposed by the Indian Statistical Institute is fair. But why is the ministry in such a hurry to start the new test in 2013 without looking into the pros and cons?" asked S K Das, president of the IIT-Madras Faculty Association. 

"We agree the system must be modified and want to provide suggestions on how best to make the change. The ISEET proposal is sketchy and nothing has been documented. Whatever we know is through a presentation and from media," said chairman of the board of governors of IIT Kanpur M Anandakrishnan.

70 - Admission: IITs up ante against govt proposals - Hindustan Times

Admission: IITs up ante against govt proposals

Vanita Srivastava, Hindustan Times

New Delhi, March 27, 2012

Students and faculties of IITs have opposed the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry’s proposal to change the format of IIT-JEE examination from 2013 and give 40% weightage to board examination marks. Sources said many IITs, including those in Kanpur, Delhi, Mumbai and Khargapur, have not supported the proposed changes in the current form.

The All India IIT Faculty Federation has sent a letter to HRD minister Kapil Sibal and its copy to the Prime Minister’s Office stating that the academic issues, including the admission standards and process, were primarily the sole responsibility of the senates.

“The views of IIT senates must form the basis for the final formulation of admission process. It is shocking that till today the views of the senates have not been invited,” the federation said.

Maintaining that the faculties were initiating discussions at the institutional platforms, including senate or general body meetings, the federation said the opinion that had emerged didn’t support the proposals.

The federation has demanded that the proposal be put on hold till the senates of IITs come up with their own views and recommendations.

The IIT Kanpur Students’ Senate, which met recently, stated that the Ramasami committee targeted certain problems in the current system, including commercialised coaching classes, rural-urban and gender disparities, negligence of school education and increased stress on students. However, it said, the report did not clearly mention how its recommendations would solve these problems.

Observing that normalisation of marks of students, belonging to more than 30 different boards, was a complex and non trivial task, the senate said the board exams lacked transparency and uniformity. It also said each institute should get freedom to decide on its own admission process.

Stating that any decision of such magnitude should involve consultation with all stake holders, the student senate said the panel report had suggested interactions with IIT faculties and students. But, it said, no interaction on the proposals had been conducted among the panel members and students and faculty of IIT Kanpur so far.

69 - IIT Faculty Federation & Senates of IIT K and Delhi question HRD move to replace IIT-JEE - Economic Times

IIT Faculty Federation & Senates of IIT K and Delhi question HRD move to replace IIT-JEE

ET Bureau Mar 26, 2012, 02.08AM IST

NEW DELHI: The government's proposal to put in place a common entrance examination for engineering and science has run into a roadblock.

The Senates of IIT Kanpur and Delhi, and the IIT Faculty Federation have questioned the decision to replace the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (IITJEE).

They have decided to ask the human resources development ministry to hold on and further debate the issue of examination reforms.

Their objection come soon after states like Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Puducherry and West Bengal sought more time to study the proposal.

The ministry hopes to make the common entrance examination, Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET), operational from 2013.

This single national entrance test for admission into engineering and science courses would be applicable for all centrally-funded institutions, such as IITs, National Institutes of Technology, IISER, IIIT, IISc (Bangalore), IIEST (Shibpur) and NERIST (Itanagar).

It will replace the IIT-JEE - used for admissions by the 15 IITs, Institute of Technology, Benaras Hindu University and Indian School of Mines. It will also replace the AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination) used by the National Institutes of Technology. The common eligibility test will consist of two parts.

The first will be an aptitude test which will be 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. The aim of both tests would be to indicate the student's scholastic level and aptitude for science and engineering.

The new system would also give weightage to the School Board Examination or class XII results. The proposal considered by the Central Advisory Board on Education set 60:40 weightage ratio for the eligibility test and class XII results, respectively.

The Senate has disapproved the manner in which the HRD ministry is pushing through these changes. The Senate is the highest decision making body in the IIT.

The IIT Faculty Federation has opposed the proposed reforms, arguing that the new examination system wouldn't be able to assess whether students have either the aptitude or knowledge to be admitted to the country's top engineering schools.

The Senate of IIT Kanpur is understood to have differed with the proposed single entrance test with weightage formula for admission into IITs. The senate members said the method suggested for factoring in Class-XII score in selection would not help the IITs to ensure that the best students were admitted.

Their argument is that since the assessment system varies among school boards, it would be not be possible to assess all students by the same scale and weightage. The IIT Faculty Federation is also opposing the weightage formula.

68 - Single national engineering entrance exam to replace multiple tests draws ire of IIT faculty - Financial Express

Single national engineering entrance exam to replace multiple tests draws ire of IIT faculty

JYOTSNA BHATNAGAR

Posted: Friday, Feb 24, 2012 at 0454 hrs IST

Ahmedabad: The decision to hold a single entrance test for all centrally-run engineering institutes from next year has stirred a hornet’s nest, with three bluechip IITs writing to the Union human resource ministry opposing the proposal. Faculties of IITs in Delhi, Mumbai and Kanpur have voiced their concerns, saying introducing the test without normalising marks across state boards in too little time could affect current Class 12 students and lead to a bunching of candidates at the top of the rank list.

The Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET), which will eliminate multiple admission tests including the IIT-JEE, is expected to reduce stress on students. The three IITs that have protested, along with the IITs in Kharagpur and Guwahati, are counted as the best among India’s 15 IITs.

The institutes’ primary concern is the impact on the batch of Class 12 students who appear for IIT-JEE and other exams this year. At an emergency senate meeting last week, IIT Delhi faculty members expressed concern that introducing ISEET from next year will “not be feasible and will be unfair to the current class 12 students”. This is largely because while two attempts are allowed for JEE, the current batch of Class 12 is unaware that in the new scheme of things, their board scores will carry 40% weight. “If they do not make it in 2012, then in 2013 their Class 12 marks will get counted but they were not aware of this when they appeared for Class 12,” states a note prepared by the faculty, a copy of which is with FE.

IITs are also miffed over providing weightage for Class 12 examinations without specifying a formula for normalising marks from India’s 42 secondary school boards. The JEE system so far has used Class 12 marks only as a cut-off. The institutes worry that a deadline has been set to implement the normalisation, without specifying how the process would take place. Normalisation has not been tried even in 15% of the boards and even data prepared by the Ramasami Commission evaluating the feasibility of the JEE revamp have data from only four school boards.

The institutes feel there should be at least one dry run of normalisation before implementing the formula. “It would be advisable to have a dry run. Any changed system should come after the consent of the IIT senates,” says Prof Sanjeev Sanghi, president of the faculty forum of IIT Delhi. Normalisation is seen as a herculean task involving obtaining data from all boards representing a heterogenous mix with different levels of complexity, grading and scores, and that too by the first or second week of June.

The experience of BITS, Pilani indicates that such an exercise was turning lop-sided in favour of a couple of state boards and hence that Institute shifted to an entrance exam. IITs are also apprehensive about the methodology and reported malpractices in some state board exams.

The IITs feel that at best, the normalised/percentile scores should be used as a filter and not contribute to final scores. The IIT Kanpur senate resolution passed earlier this month is firmly of the opinion that board marks should not be used for ranking.

IITs also feel that if expectation levels in different exams are different, a single test is not the cure. Such an exam will lead to bunching at the top with perhaps over a thousand students could score the same marks, complicating the rank allotment process.

It is also being felt that the single test won’t be able to reduce stress or curb the so-called ‘menace’ of coaching. In fact, if school exam scores are included, coaching classes could get more business. As long as there is a big gap between the number of seats in good colleges and the number of students, it will be difficult to stop candidates from seeking extra help.

The premier IITs have proposed a two-tier JEE with a first level of multiple-choice questions (MCQ) and the second one a subjective type exam. The MCQ exam should be used only as a screening test and a second exam based on subjective type questions in physics, chemistry and mathematics administered to a manageable number of students (say, 40,000 to 50,000). In addition, if it is strongly desired by all, there could be a component of Class 12 marks, either suitably normalised or on a percentile basis, which could be weighed along with the MCQ exam, but this score is only to be used as a filter for the second exam. Finally, the responsibility of conducting these exams should lie with IITs. The IIT Bombay faculty forum meeting held a week ago recommended that the undergraduate admission process should go back to the two-tier format that existed earlier.

IIT faculties also feel slighted that they were kept in the dark by the ministry while taking such a major decision. IIT Delhi note categorically points out that “such important decisions are being taken without proper discussions” with IITs, which are not only directly impacted by this change but will also be nodal in implementing it. “The immaculate reputation of the JEE is due to the commitment and involvement of the IIT faculty at all stages. So, if there is a problem with the JEE, the solution too should come from IITs,” said a senior faculty member of a leading IIT.

67 - Now, JEE with Class 12 count faces ‘feasibility glare’ - Daily Pioneer

Now, JEE with Class 12 count faces ‘feasibility glare’

THURSDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2012 00:00 PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | NEW DELHI

The proposal of new single Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) being proposed for admission to IITs, IIITs, NITs, IISER and State Government-run engineering colleges with weightage on Class 12 marks has raised questions on its ultimate feasibility.

According to sources, combining 12th standard marks in the selection merit may bring the same 100 per cent cut-off fiasco as recently witnessed by DU, as there are many boards, which will start inflating their marks, in such a way so as to neutralise the normalisation impact.

Talking on condition of anonymity, the experts expressed reservations on normalisation. They pointed out T Ramasami committee, which is working on new single JEE, chose to ignore that with liberal policy of awarding marks in many State boards, there are many hundreds of candidates with scores 100 per cent or above 100 per cent — some of these even award bonus marks to students, eg, for sports activity (Maharashtra State) enabling students to score above 100 per cent. Similar is the case with other boards too as Odisha.

Further, when the Board becomes aware of the normalisation formula, it is likely to start awarding inflated marks in such a way to take advantage of the prescribed normalisation formula, felt the sources.

“This had occurred in the past for whomsoever who used the normalisation”, the sources said, reminding that most bodies (eg, UPSC, BITS, IIT’s GATE), which earlier used normalisation of marks for their selections/admissions, have already done away with such concepts.

According to them, if such a situation is allowed, it may ultimately lead to cut-throat competition in Class X and XII as observed in DU, with cutoffs going to 100 per cent. Even with 100 per cent, a student will not able to get an IIT seat of his choice, feared the sources.

Ramasamy chose to ignore the major conclusions drawn by the statistical experts that “subject scores do not appear to be comparable, the question of combining them for comparability of aggregate scores across the boards does not arise,” the sources pointed out.

The above was concluded with statistical analysis of XII standard marks of various boards that there existed poor correlation among the marks scored across the boards. A natural inference of the statistical analysis is that the marks, scored across the boards, cannot be compared, thereby naturally discarding use of the normalised ranks.

The above important statistical analysis of the ISI expert report had not been included in Ramasamy’s presentation. They further argued it would further enhance the importance of the coaching institutes.

“These institutes are elated with the proposal of weightage to 12th standard marks indicating that the students would be compelled to get enrolled for full two-year course instead of the evening or weekend classes.

66 - Rethinking the Mother of All Exams - New York Times

LETTER FROM INDIA

Rethinking the Mother of All Exams

By MANU JOSEPH

Published: February 1, 2012

NEW DELHI — For more than half a century, one aptitude test has determined the self-esteem, future and even the spouses of generations of Indian adolescents, chiefly boys. The Joint Entrance Exam of the Indian Institutes of Technology is a brooding cultural force that is visible across the nation, on signboards and newspaper advertisements, as “I.I.T.-J.E.E.,” the first abbreviation many Indian children learn. It is an ominous inevitability for millions of boys, a fate decided in their cradles, a certainty like death. Last year nearly half a million candidates took the test — one of the toughest exams in the world — to compete for about 5,000 seats in the best of the I.I.T.’s and nearly as many seats in the less sought-after institutes. Coaching for the J.E.E. is an industry valued at billions of rupees. There is so much demand that some coaching classes have their own entrance exams. But the J.E.E. is now on its way out.

It is not the only engineering entrance exam in India. Lower down the rungs, there are other colleges, which require other exams to qualify. Competition is fierce all the way. Disturbed by the number of entrance exams, the Human Resource Development Ministry has decided to devise a common exam that would govern the admission process of several engineering institutes, including the famed I.I.T.’s. The nature of the new aptitude test, which is expected to debut in 2014, would be different from the J.E.E. The selection procedure, too, would be very different from what the I.I.T.’s use today. So, the type of person who enters the I.I.T.’s in the future may be very different. Opinion is divided on whether the new I.I.T. graduate will be better or worse than current alumni.

The I.I.T.’s are nothing without the national perception of the “IITian.” And the perception is that he is primarily a he. And that he must be very smart. As some Indians point out with a hint of pride, in Scott Adams’s “Dilbert” comic strip, the brilliant Asok, who died on a Moon mission and reincarnated as part man and part Snickers bar, is from I.I.T. The fame of the institutes is an enduring relic from the years when socialism impoverished India and securing an elite engineering degree became the most elegant way for smart Indians to escape to America.

The I.I.T.’s were never great centers of learning by world standards.

Rather, they were museums that collected young Indians with excellent quantitative abilities. In the 1980s and ’90s, the migration of Indian scientific talent to the United States, deplored here as a “brain drain,” became a subject of intense debates in schools and colleges. Once, during the convocation ceremony at I.I.T.-Madras, the chief speaker received a standing ovation when he declared, “Brain drain is better than brain in the drain.” His words traveled with the speed of a rumor across Madras, also known as Chennai, through homes and schools, evoking laughter and applause, and delivering a bleak reminder to young boys that their lives depended on passing the J.E.E.

In Madras in the ’80s, many smart girls were not allowed by their families to take the J.E.E. for fear that it would then be hard to get them married. One girl I knew who cleared the exam was not allowed by her parents to attend the institute, probably for the same reason. But the boys who made it to the I.I.T.’s became the heroes of their neighborhoods. Other boys hated them, and pretty girls wanted to marry them. The adulation would follow them until the end of their time.

The glamour of the I.I.T.’s has always inspired parents to force their children to take the J.E.E. Increasingly, those parents are from modest educational and financial backgrounds. A few years ago, in Mumbai, I walked into a J.E.E. coaching class that conducted its own entrance exam to filter out 9 out of 10 applicants. An orientation program for parents was under way. A man who could not read English was sitting with brochures and study materials. He was disturbed that I was carrying a red book while he had not been given any such book. I told him that the book I was holding was a novel called “Love in the Time of Cholera.”

“Is it a guide?” he asked.

For a long time, the IITians were from urban, literate middle-class families, and it was inevitable that their success would inspire small-town Indians to prepare for the mother of all entrance exams.

Coaching colleges essentially dispensed with formal schooling and focused on the J.E.E. alone. As they became increasingly successful, it became evident that the J.E.E. was no longer an aptitude test but a giant goal that could be achieved through years of brute hard work and coaching.

I.I.T. professors and alumni have been mourning the falling quality of the students. Last October, Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys and an I.I.T. alumnus, told an audience in New York that the new IITians were substandard. “They somehow get through the Joint Entrance Examination. But their performance in I.I.T.’s, at jobs or when they come for higher education in institutes in the U.S. is not as good as it used to be.”

It is improbable that the I.I.T.’s will ever regain their old glory. The circumstances of the nation have changed, and the smartest Indians do not need an engineering degree to find a place in the world or to make a decent living. Also, the government has not invested enough in the I.I.T.’s, and the most talented scientific minds have the option to enroll in genuinely outstanding centers of learning in the West instead of being stuck in a place that has derived its prestige largely from the fact that only one in 50 cracks its entrance exam.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “Serious Men.”

A version of this article appeared in print on February 2, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.