A deeper conspiracy to ruin IITs to make way for Foreign Universities
Something is wrong with our educational system! Why would someone like to
destroy a brand which has proved to be successful for 50 years in the name of
an experiment to provide relief to thousands of students of the country. JEE
has been a successful exam which has been able to get the best brains to IIT.
All through these years the IITs have not relied on Class XII marks from the
Boards, at least not to the extent that they would be counted in the JEE rank.
The reasons are many: It is not that IITs do not trust the Boards but the issue
is that of providing a common unbiased platform to all students. The syllabus,
marking patterns, scores, all vary across the 42 Boards. Thus IITs have used
the Board marks only as a cut-off. Now our great minds have decided that this
should be done away with and so the Board marks will contribute to the IIT
rank. It has been told that a normalization formula will be provided by the ISI
and this will make all State Board marks fall on a straight line when
normalized.
Without checking the formula, our Minister in a hurry, has decided to
implement this scheme from 2013 itself. All this when most IIT faculty and IIT
Senates are against this stand. But let us not blame the babus of MHRD and
Minister alone. Equal or greater culprits are some Directors of IITs who have
not conveyed their views in the IIT Council meeting but have mutely agreed to
the proposals of MHRD. One of these has even gone against his own draft report
where he suggested that IITS should have a second exam after screening based on
Class XII Board marks and an aptitude test.
Why are the Directors doing this? Are they not supposed to convey their
Faculty decisions and Senate decisions in these higher bodies? Well some are
afraid to speak, others are nearing their tenure end and so they want extensions/
some other petty postings from the Government. One of them is targeting to be
the head of the new testing service which will replace JEE. But then why is the
Government doing this? They explain: to reduce stress on the students; to free
the students from the clutches of coaching.
I am sorry none of this is going to happen with your proposed scheme. Now
with only one exam for all colleges on one day, the stress will be much more.
More cases of depression will be reported in case students have a bad day on
that exam day. Earlier the students had an option: if they did not do well in
JEE they could still try AIEEE. Now it is only one exam on one day. But the
MHRD says stress will reduce and MHRD is
an honorable institution.
They say Coaching will reduce: Coaching classes have already geared
themselves to teach Class XII, aptitude test and advanced test. Students have
no clue so they will only have the option of going to coaching classes. As long
as there are 5000 seats in IIT and 5 Lakh aspirants, coaching will continue.
But MHRD does not think like this and MHRD
is an honorable institution.
I hope some sense prevails in our honorable institution and they do not
break a time honoured system just for the heck of it. Or is there a deeper
conspiracy to ruin the IITs so that Foreign universities can set foot in the
country.
Totally agree with that, Sir. Not just to dilute IITs, but the MHRD is also trying to make the school students dumber by making school education too easy!!!
ReplyDeletei agree that xii results should not impact jee rank...current system is an age old working system which has proved to be successful. However if needed board cut off could be as high as say 80% to 85% (e.g.80% for BITS) for students not to ignore boards. Suitable steps should also be taken to get most talented students from XII & lesser from ones who have dropped an year post XII eg pegging max 10% intake from repeaters.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"something is wrong with our education system"?? lol. look closer my friend, a little harder, a little deeper, and then show me something that is right.
ReplyDeleteIf you don`t have something to say then be quiet ... Strop being a bitch ... Please
DeleteStop trolling and learn how to read. you moron.
DeleteSir,
ReplyDeleteI am a big fan of yours but I am very sorry to say that I don't agree with you totally, I agree that JEE is like a legend but its also true that it is an age old method of evaluation. Students don't even go to school because they have to attend coaching classes, it creating mockery of the School System, This thing you can't deny that in a school system, an overall growth of personality occurs which is very essential for an individual.
I feel that the very idea to scrap JEE and introduce a Common exam instead is a vision but at the same time, I also feel that India is not ready for this method yet, reason being, India is not having a unified board pattern where student can be judged on common grounds, level of corruption at board level is very high, anyone sitting in remote parts of India can get a respectable marks without even appearing for the exam, other reason which you mentioned about a Single exam for all the institutes, it can be harassing for the aspirants, instead it should be conducted the way SAT and GRE are conducted so that students can compensate for their losses if at all there is any.
Also I believe that if there is a exam which is conducted on such a grand scale then the right of conducting the examination should be in the hands of IITs only or any such body which can keep it corruption free so that it can be conducted in as pious way as JEE was conducted.
I really don't understand that why government is rushing towards this change instead letting it be a smooth transition. They should first try to change the system at primary level, high school level and secondary level and implement the common exam when country is ready to digest it..
This decision is similar to announcing a bunch of new IITs without any planning.
"This thing you can't deny that in a school system, an overall growth of personality occurs which is very essential for an individual"
DeleteDude the very fact that we have fewer good college seats as compared to number of aspirants who want to take them, is destroying the school system.
Until or unless u give guarantee to school students that you will get admission in good engineering college by becoming a house captain or cheer leader ;) no person with brains is gonna do that...
Agree with you Rahul. Why this hurry? Let us collectively think of a proper system; check all its pitfalls and then act!
DeleteSanjeev Sanghi
This is a tragedy, a farce. I have been surprised that the very people one expected to reject this strongly and vociferously seem to be mute spectators to this farce being played out, for reasons best known to them. I am even more surprised at some readers here endorsing such 'reforms' not in fixing whats bad (our state and central exam system and syllabi and teaching and assessment methods) but un-fixing whats good to make it bad!
ReplyDeleteSir, dont we all know that the State Boards, ICSE and CBSE et all just test the mugging ability of candidates and not really an real understanding of the subject. We all know how some teachers, many of them ill-paid, rush through "reading" of chapters in say Physics, and use same well rehersed numericals and tell us whats "important" and whats not! Don't we all know that the level of teaching in the classroom is so so woefully inadequate that all students flock to "tutions" even for the 10th or 12 boards?
And thats not all. The exam pattern, too, is predictable and in many cases exam centers are prone to widespread cheating, collusion, and paper leaks - not all of which gets caught or reported!
So if IIT Directors trust this system where big reforms are long overdue - Kudo's (and good luck to them.) I do not for a moment believe that all board exams across the country are run in a fair transparent objective way that is designed to test understanding of the subject or even prepare me with the academic standards required in pursuing a Btech from IIT.
If indeed the JEE tinkering was due to issues of stress to students and coaching - well students always had a easier choice, that, many infact, actually do excercise. There is CET, COMED etc - these are easier options with more seats and lesser intesnse competion - BUT THESE also have an entrance test and rank the candidates.
So I wonder what the Govt. move reforms or protects - the dwindling relevance of the 12th exam? the quality of IIT intakes ? or vested interests of some people?
Can not a PIL be filed to stall this most ill-advised step?
@AM:
DeleteWe are able to understand these simple things. Why are our Directors not understanding this? Why are they so afraid of MHRD minister?
Let us raise this issue on as many public platforms as we can. Hopefully the media will also pick it up. There is a lot in the print media but probably not glamorous enough for the small screen!
Sanjeev Sanghi
JEE simply works because questions in it are fresh and only people who have understanding of fundamentals can do them,we have to give the credits to the people who are setting the JEE questions for their awesome contribution to the nation.
ReplyDeleteBoard exams and any other exams conducted by CBSE etc. have the problem that they pick up questions from the books and those books are available to the students, the number of questions getting repeated is high... so these exams test how much a student has studied...simply speaking not how much he understood.
In engineering world there are different jobs some jobs involve people reading the manual and solving the problem which comes again and again other problems are fresh and they involve creativity.
People picked up by JEE are in some sense better in solving the later case and if we are removing the scale to measure the ability to solve fresh problems then i think its time to pray...
God helps those who help themselves: So mere prayer is not enough. All the stakeholders also have to act.
Delete"But MHRD does not think like this and MHRD
ReplyDeleteis an honorable institution." reminds me of antony's sarcastic words from shakespeare's julius caesar
you don`t say
DeleteTHANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS
Deletelol @ above two
Deletea long and delayed response. please be patient.
ReplyDeleteas far as normalization across boards is concerned, the method of converting to percentile within the respective board, and giving that weightage, seems quite reasonable; till the time the boards are brought on level at least. it does away with the alleged disadvantage of students from rural areas vis a vis those from urban areas... at least as far as it is possible to do so if you're focusing on board marks.
(source: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-09-22/kanpur/30188470_1_state-board-aptitude-test-percentile)
quoting from the hindu
"The IIT council has proposed that a weightage of 40 per cent be given to class XII marks, and has recommended that students be evaluated with questions on aptitude, comprehension and critical thinking and advanced examination, besides testing them on physics, mathematics and chemistry."
personally, i can't see any fault with this line of change, whatsoever.
questions on aptitude, comprehension and critical thinking will, when well constructed and implemented, bring the test on par with international examination patterns.
right now, the exclusivity of the jee-pass club relies exclusively on the ability to learn a huge syllabus, and become hyper effecient in finding a solution to question problems.
irrelevancy is also a problem in the current scenario. what is the use of a future computer engineer, having an in depth knowledge of high school chemistry? and why should lack of such knowledge prevent him from studying what he wants?
also, in the iit's themselves, rigidity is an element. i cant say much about that, only from an outsider's perspective, i think more flexible courses with selectivity in classes taken would be infinitely preferable.
when i said find me something right in the education system, i meant that the point of education, the power or capability to use knowledge effectively, efficiently and for the common and greater good; the ability to apply the mental faculty of reason; to lead, not follow blindly; are no longer priorities in the system... rather, they hardly exist anymore. in cbse, the course load is so high, there is hardly any time for a teacher to bring something extra to the classroom. and of course an honorary mention to the mainstay of all classroom teaching, the NCERT books. newton gauss ramanujan einstein et al must be turning in their graves seeing the way they slaughter the beauty of the pure sciences and mathematics.
did i forget something? i'll come back later if i think of something.
tc, thanks for reading.
oh yes.. it might not be the best thing that the iit's werent consulted for implementation, but its good that the MHRD is taking a more proactive role in higher technical education than letting the admission committees of the iit's call all the shots. it will make the process more transparent.
Ankit,
ReplyDeletePlease do not think that the changes are coming because of MHRD alone. We at IIT have been debating about the tests we have been conducting and reforms but what we are objecting to is the way MHRD is trying to come up with ill thought out, unimplementable schemes which will lead to a chaos. What if the scheme is implemented and 2 state boards do not give their percentile data till July. Will all the admissions be stalled or we let all the students of these boards suffer! So what we are saying is why this haste? Let us think carefully do a dry run and then only implement a new scheme. Till then let us not tinker with the old system, which is running.
About transparency, I do not think any exam provides more transparency than those conducted by IITs. This year the students have been given a carbon copy of the answers they have filled, their answer books will be put up on the web so that they can check the scores, the cut offs have been announced before any grading has started. And one of the reasons IIT faculty is protesting is that we feel that this transparency will be lost if IITs dont conduct the JEE.
Sanjeev Sanghi