Beginning of a Common Entrance Test for Engineering from 2013!
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In a recent meeting of the IIT council, a pan-India level common entrance test for admission to engineering programmes has been proposed from 2013. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said that, there shall be one exam for all engineering students. This exam will be in operation only after the clearance of the clearance of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee and of the state ministers.
To implement it, government had constituted a committee under Secretary to the department of science and technology and for that T Ramasami, will examine all the facts and will help in implementation of the test. Ramasami has also been asked to finalize six options which were deliberated upon for the test. 
Issue of hike in tuition fees has also came up by the Anil Kakodkar committee, and it has been cleared by Mr. Sibal, that the fee would remain static at Rs. 50,000 per annum but a student except from the ST and OBC category should have to pay back the amount . But there is a difference between the fee deposited and what IIT spends on students.
At present, the cost for every IIT student is at around Rs. 8 lakhs against 2 lakh which is paid over the entire duration of the B.tech programme. It is not feasible to raise the tuition fee to Rs. 2 lakh per annum because it is required to keep the interest of all sections in mind, said Mr. Sibal.
He has also made clear that the ‘payback' scheme is not applicable for those who enroll into M. Tech programme, and do PhD and to even those who are recruited as faculty in IIT. There will be considerable changes in the admission procedure based on the common engineering test, and an all-India merit list will be made on the combined weightage given to class XII exam and to a common entrance test.
This test will examine the logic of students and non-subject matters. Weightage would be given on the basis of class 12th marks and after the results are secured then Indian Statistical Institute will put in place a mathematical formula for equalization. Few problems have occurred while implementing the equalization procedure in Andhra Pradesh.
He has clarified that the formula used by Indian Statistical Institute would be based on the data of various boards which was collected over the past four years to make it an efficient equalization model. The council has also decided to generate 40,000 PhDs by 2020 and create a pool of 16,000 faculties by then.
DMAT system will be used to implement the ‘payback' scheme in terms of installments. It is a process for the establishment of a national database of academic qualifications, and this project is on the move and it will be in an electronic format by an identified, registered depository.
Source: Richha Bhatnagar (Shiksha Team)
