IITs oppose proposed changes in IIT-JEE

By Ruchi Shrimali

IIT Kanpur, Delhi, Kharagpur, and Mumbai are not happy with the changes HRD Ministry has proposed for IIT JEE. This proposal is likely to implemented in 2013 and will give 40% weightage to performance of students in their 12th boards.

The All India IIT Faculty Federation has written a letter to HRD minister Kapil Sibal and to the Prime Minister's Office to complain about how IIT senates have been ignored in the process. IIT senates have been solely responsible for formulating the admission process for IITs until now but HRD Ministry saw no reason to seek its views or recommendations on the matter. It also notified the government that the opinion of IIT faculties and senates does not match the changes proposed by the ministry.

IIT Kanpur students' senate said that Ramasami Committee fails to clarify how its recommendations will help solve problems like commercialisation of coaching classes, disparities in gender and rural-urban education scenarios, and normalisation of marks for students of 30 different boards. Know more about IIT Kanpur students' senate mandate

Earlier, the HRD Ministry had proposed that from 2013, JEE will include an aptitude test too. The percentage of marks students will get in boards will be converted to percentiles for comparison purposes. More about the new JEE format

Later, the Ministry also proposed that the new engineering entrance exam should be conducted in two stages - Mains and Advanced. First step of the test will be an aptitude test while the next step will check the knowledge of the students. See the details here

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