New JEE 2013 fails to win over all Indian states
A high level meeting of state education ministers on Tuesday put another spoke in the wheel of HRD ministry’s plan to introduce ‘one nation, one exam’. Majority of the states have refused to adopt the new JEE format for the state-run institutions.
Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Assam and Maharashtra have expressed willingness to adopt the new common engineering entrance exam. Other states are okay with using the new JEE for central institutions but oppose the fact that different yardsticks will be used for admission to IITs and other CFTIs. Read more
States demanded that admission criteria for all the institutes – IITs, NITs, or IIITs – should be the same. IITs however feel that using the same criteria as other institutions will dilute its education standards. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal remains non-committal on the issue. Know more about the issue
Kerala and Uttar Pradesh have opposed the Centre’s proposal to hold the common entrance test. The HRD Ministry has clarified that states are not under any compulsion to join the test for institutions under their jurisdiction. It has also explained that states who chose the new JEE for admission to its institutions will have examination papers available in their regional language, in addition to those in English and Hindi. The states will also have the freedom to assign weightage to Class XII board marks, JEE Main exams, and JEE Advanced exams for admission to the institutions in their jurisdiction. See details
IIT Alumni Association still insists that Sibal has broken his promise of not implementing the new JEE exam from next year, in case of any dissent from the IITs. Somnath Bharti, president of the IIT Delhi Alumni Association and Supreme Court lawyer, is now considering filing public interest litigation (PIL) against the MHRD for compromising the autonomy of the IITs. He alludes to the violation of statutory rights of IIT senates to decide the ‘mode and manner in which students will be admitted to the respective IITs’. More about it
The HRD minister’s hype about ‘one nation, one exam’ is also claimed to be a myth as it only covers IITs and CFTIs. Regional engineering colleges and private institutions are not covered in the exam’s purview.
Other interesting reads:
- Done deal: New engineering exam from 2013
- IIT-JEE and AIEEE merging – is this good news for students?
