JEE Main 2015: Parents’ reaction

JEE Main 2015 offline exam was conducted on April 4, 2015 and the online exam is scheduled to be conducted on April 10 and April 11, 2015. View JEE Main 2015 important dates here.

However, like previous years when Shiksha.com went on field to report JEE Main 2015, we found that JEE exam is not only given by the student but his/her entire family, particularly the aspirant’s parents.

Around 13.1 lakh students are giving JEE exam this year and most of the parents we spoke to shared that their child had been preparing for JEE exam since the past two years. However, some parents revealed that in order to be in sync with the JEE exam pattern and become better at time management, their child started taking JEE coaching since his/her Class IX itself.

Also, parents closely watch and guide their children at each and every step regarding what to do and what not to do in order to clear the most popular engineering entrance exam in India.

We were further told that since students who appear for JEE Main are mostly around 17 years of age and busy studying day and night to first perform well in their Class XII board exams and thereafter the JEE paper. It is mostly the task of parents to keep supplying them with information related to the exam date, application process and the likes.

Everyone offers information regarding student feedback for JEE main 2015. But Shiksha.com got talking to parents of JEE aspirants to bring for you the other side of the story. A more mature one, if we may say so.

Why JEE

Jaswanti Sindhu shares that since her elder son is an IIT Delhi graduate and daughter is a final year Mechanical engineering student there, so her younger daughter is also very keen to make it through to IIT.

On the other hand there were some parents who shared that they never put any pressure on their children to get through IIT. Ritu Bharti said, “We have not really digressed from the curriculum specifically for JEE and my son has just been a really good student. He hasn’t made any extra effort for JEE apart from joining Vidyamandir for weekend classes”.  Elaborating on the same Mrs Kataria from Vasant Vihar shared that “I am not much interested in my son going to IIT because both he and I are not much into IITs”.

Other entrance exams given by students

Parents shared that their children were giving multiple engineering entrance exams apart from JEE Main. The most popular entrance exams apart from JEE Main were BITSAT, VITEEE and IP University entrance exam.

Role of parents in JEE Main preparation

Anil Kumar Sinha who especially came to Delhi from Patna so that his son can prepare better for JEE Main 2015 said that, “I tried my best to provide the atmosphere where my son can prepare in a more effective manner”. He further elaborated that this is all a parent can do – provide books and reference material for preparation rest of the work the student only has to do. He also said that all parents can do is motivate their children that they are capable to achieve anything.

Mrs Sindhu shared that the role of parents in JEE preparation stage is very important. She further said that parents have to provide psychological support, particularly at the time of board exams because at that time students are in a dilemma as they have to prepare for both the entrance exam as well as 10+2 exams.

“My role has been that of a nurturer and to provide positive reinforcement, motivation and just to be around”, said Mrs Bharti. Apart from this, she also informed that she did detailed research about colleges and engineering branches which her son got to know at his school or through alumni.

Sangeeta Jain shared that she used to do all the research regarding exam pattern, application dates, exam dates etc., for her daughter because she did not have that much time to look for information as she was busy preparing for the exam.

Talking about his role during his daughter’s preparation phased for JEE Main 2015, Vijay Bhan said that, “We used to help her in anyway, whether it was surfing the internet or looking for and buying books” that the child needed and also encourage the child to prepare and perform better.

Feeback on JEE Main syllabus & rank calculation

Elaborating about her view on the way JEE exam ranks are calculated Mrs Sindhu said that CBSE is applying more and more conditions in order to shortlist candidates for admissions. She said, “The board says that they are reducing the burden on students but they have increased the burden. In 10+2 they have put a condition that students should score more than 75%. Then they put a condition that the rank of students should be in the top one lakh in JEE Main, so till the time the child doesn’t reach JEE Advanced, he/she is under pressure only”. She very strongly recommended that the earlier selection procedure for admissions in IIT was much better.

Manoj Vishwakarma feels that in JEE Main, CBSE board is given preference. However, this should not be the case; all the board like – UP Board, Bihar Board, SSC must be given equal weightage. He also said that the JEE conducting authority should include all the common point and syllabus of each board in the exam.

Talking about the JEE Main marking scheme, Mrs Kataria shared that, “I actually do not know much about it. We were just concentrating on the CBSE marking scheme and the kind of question papers that came in the board exams. So, parents like me are concentrating more on what happened in the CBSE board exam rather than what is happening in the JEE exam”.

Other related articles:

Shiksha Opinion: Shouldn’t all JEE Main aspirants get a chance to appear for the exam?