Scrapping of JEE Advanced; Will the IIT Council members agree?

With an aim to revamp and radicalize the engineering education system in India, the IIT Council will be discussing the proposal of scrapping JEE Advanced for admissions to IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) at a meeting scheduled for August 21. Besides this, the council also plans to discuss the proposal to discontinue the flagship BTech programs and offer post graduate courses.

The proposals, which have been forwarded by some of the eminent faculty members of IITs, are a part of ‘Revamping Engineering Education and Returning Childhood to students’. The idea is to check the multi-million IIT coaching industry and deliver IIT standard teaching to more students. If approved, the proposals will first require a large scale planning for execution. All eyes are on the August 21 meeting of the IIT Council as to whether the members agree to scrap JEE Advanced.

Meanwhile some of the other proposals expected to be discussed in the meeting are:

Using JEE Main score for admissions across engineering colleges

It has been proposed that JEE Main scores should be the criteria for selection across engineering colleges. It is being suggested students would be ranked on the basis of their JEE Main scores and candidates would be bracketed in 10 groups with students falling in each group considered at par. For instance, all students scoring between 80 to 90 percent would be treated equal. IITs would then select candidates from the top group without any tests or interview.

Offering semester experience to students

IITs may offer a semester experience to students under which they would be invited for semester experience for 5, 6, 7 and 8 or 3 and 4 year of their BTech degrees. Candidates will be selected on the basis of the NPTEL score. They would also be charged a fee of Rs. 2 lakh for the IIT experience with adequate loan and scholarship facility. Subsequently, students - as part of scheme - would also get a degree of their respective colleges categorically mentioning that the students have completed the said semester at the IITs. These students acquiring an IIT experience would also be given preference for admission into postgraduate courses (MTech) at IITs across the country, provided they complete their Bachelors with high marks.

Increasing seat intake

Another proposal to be discussed at the meeting is increasing the seat intake at IITs to 80000 as compared to the current 10000

IITs to become mentoring institutes

Adding to the role of IITs, the proposal suggests that IITs would be converted into mentoring institutes with each IIT undertaking the responsibility of 100 colleges.

Also read:

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• JEE Main, NEET 2019 may be computer based but not online
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