Prof. Damodar Acharya Committee reportedly proposes to scrap IIT JEE and other entrance exams
April 14th, 2010
Update: Following are excerpts from a follow-up Telegraph report which mentions about the committee’s recommendation to have wide-spread consultations before making the changes.
But it has advised caution in implementing the reforms. The panel has suggested detailed consultations and workshops with the state governments, other top engineering institutions like the National Institutes of Technology, and private universities.
The recommendations of the panel can be fine-tuned based on the outcome of the consultations, the team led by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya has suggested. The panel is likely to meet soon and may draw up a schedule for the consultations at that meeting.
… At a meeting of the panel in Chennai on March 16 with representatives of state and central school boards, some participants suggested that rural students be given more opportunities than urban students. The participants proposed two attempts for urban students and three for rural students.
The panel and the HRD ministry will also need to convince state governments that the move to end state-specific engineering tests is not against their interests.
Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.
… The panel, appointed by human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).
The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, ..
Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.
Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on physics, chemistry and math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.
If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will for the first time admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.
…The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.
… The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.
The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.
The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.
The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards.
There is a big danger that the above approach will make the XIIth exams a high stakes affair and bring it under the microscope with every aspect of it being scrutinized and judged by everyone. Most coaching classes may reinvent themselves and start coaching how to score more marks in the XIIth exam and the proposed SAT type exam. This approach may bring in bias favoring students from families with educated parents. English being a compulsory subject in XIIth, this may put students in rural areas and other areas where English is less used at a disadvantage.
So one has to wait and see how this will pan out.
My guess is if the above idea is adopted, it will go through some changes such as specific types of colleges may be allowed to give different weight to Class XII marks in different subjects. Some may introduce interviews or other tests.
One change that should be made is that when possible specialty branches should not be assigned to most students (say 70-80% in any college/institute) immediately after they join a college/institute after the XIIth. That should be determined after a year in that college/institute based on the performance in that year. This will make the class XII exam less cutthroat and ensure that students after they get into a college/institute continue to give importance to academics.
One alternative idea may to test the proposed idea (of using class XIIth marks) on 50% of the seats for a few years before deciding whether to completely abandon the current approach or not.
Entry Filed under: AIEEE,BSE Odisha,CBSE,Coaching classes at plus two level,Entrance Exams,IIPHs, NIPERs, NIDs, SPAs,IIT Bhubaneswar,IIT JEE,IITs, IISc, IISERs, NISER, IIMs,NITs, IIITs,Odisha JEE, AIEEE, BPUT counseling, etc.,Plus 2 colleges
7 Writeup
1. R.K. Ghosh | April 16th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
It was to be expected. The exact TOR for the committee at point No. 2 reads as follows.
“The committee will explore the possibility of having one examination in place of present IIT-JEE, AIEEE and other state entrance examinations for admission to engineering programs. While doing so, due weightage would be given to performance in Board exams and entrance exam. The CET should consists of an aptitude test which gauges the raw intelligence of student on the lines of GRE, SAT and less emphasis on PCM as these are already tested at the board level”
So the recommendation was already provided as a “plugin” with the TOR of the committee. I think MHRD was just interested for a stamp of approval from the committee and not on any intellectual input from the committee on the issue.
However, this will not eliminate the coaching. Because board exams will assume significant importance. So coaching will start from grade 8 onwards for an extended period of time. In an indirect way this recommendation only would increase the stress on kids without actually relieving them of it. The entire child hood will get killed.
The other greater implication of this could be states will be now forced to get rid of their respective school boards in favor of a unified central board. Otherwise, from one state board to another there will be lot of variations in grading and standards, to bring them at part a normalization procedure will be required. It will extremely difficult to design a normalization scheme that will work without conflicts across several distinct parameters. Therefore, MHRD which has earlier suggested for a unified school board, will try to force the state boards to dissolve. With this entire education system can be transferred to the central list from the concurrent list. A smart move, indeed! But I don’t know if it will succeed at all.
2. prakash joy | April 25th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Is it true that one can solve questions of physics chemistry maths without reasoning on it.or it is that physics chemistry maths are not needed to study engineering courses .replacing jee by sat is going creat further pressure on rural students as physics chemistry maths are not as allien as logical reasoning as an attribute of selection . whatever authorities say ground reality is that most of our university courses are producing graduate and postgraduates who are unskilled and not employable
government agencies should brainstorm on needs of people.an average and above average family in country is still fighting for a respectable livelihood. which comes through job .If goal of changing entrance examination pattern is to curb on coaching classes then situation will be further messy.
3. abhay kumar singh | June 2nd, 2010 at 10:07 am
sir my rank in odisha jee is 31530 in general category & 6020 in zz category.
sir i want to if will be called for counselling or not.
sir please infom me my mob: no is 9204488547
4. Sunil Sachdeva | June 28th, 2010 at 11:07 am
In Damodar acharya committi report 70% weightage to XII board exam and 30% to SAT type reasoning test is not a good idea. if it is adopted then in future IITs produce unskiled engineers because they students selected in IIT JEE those have good handwritting and creming power and got high % in board exam.It is not necessary that they have good skilled brain.70% weightage is very very high. In BITS pilani overall 60% and 80% inPCM is necessary and then BITSAT search the skilled brain but give no weightage to board exam % in selection. good idea. In BANASTHALI university for B.Tech 50% weightage given to board exam % and 50% to aptitude test. In this test 20% for reasoning 20% to physics 20% to che. and 40% to maths. It is also a good idea.but Damodar acharya report creats bad situation.
5. Sunil Sachdeva | June 28th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
In addition to my above thoughts i want to say that in current last five years no. of iit selected students increases rapidely which are coming from small villages and towns because their coaches trained them and shines them for JEE.Monopoly of metro cities students now breaking.Prof. D A wants to stops students of small villages.on the other hand MHRD grants app. 80000 scholarshipsto XII passed students which scored more than 80% . these scholarships are distributed among the CBSE and other states boards in the ratio of students. Also these sch.ships are distributed among ARTS COMMERCE and SCIENCE streams in the ratio of 25% , 25%, 50% respectively. why not MHRD grants these scholarships to indian students through a comman list? because MHRD knows very well that their is a difference of evaluation among the CBSE and other boards.so MHRD should not adoped this report.It can be done by percentile method.CBSE and other board separetly shows percentile of each student in their marks sheets. those students can appers in JEE those got atleast 80 or 75 or 70 percentile in their board.
6. Mahesh | July 25th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Those who trying to change pattern are not at all concerned with student welfare. They are frustated lot who are concerned that they are not earning as much as coaching center tutors. Instead they should try to improve exam pattern. Type of questions asked in JEE is so difficult (Just to show superiority complex of IIT s) that student is left with no choice and he has to go for coaching because every body knows the standard of schooling.So prepare a plan and make schools accountable. Meantime just increase the percentage limit like BITSAT.Change exam pattern. Giving weightage will not serve any purpose as every body knows how many fake students appear in different board exams and upto what extent cheating take place and it will help corrupt supervisors rather than genuine students.
7. Arun | January 24th, 2012 at 11:57 am
For admission in IIT giving 70% weightage to 12th exam result, can be thought by the mindless people without any commonsense.
Any answer to :
What are the plan proposed by the committee for fair examinations at 12th class?
Is it practically possible to implement in such a vast country, where the corruption is deep rooted.
Are committee members aware, How much of unfair means are adopted in the 12th examinations in the country. Better they should visit the country side school without disclosing their identity they will know the truth.