Committee recommends major changes in IIT entrance examination to HRD Ministry

The HRD Ministry has made a decision to put the recommendations of the committee in public domain for wider consultations.

IIT Council had been mulling major changes in the examination pattern such as single entrance test and weightage of boards marks, however, Committee of Eminent Persons (CEP) constituted by the IIT Council decided not to make any changes for 2016.

The aptitude test may be conducted two or more times a year and shall be an online test. The test shall be modelled such to make students apply scientific thinking rather than learning earned through coaching.

An IIT faculty member said the proposed format aimed at filtering students through the aptitude tests, which will have questions on logical reasoning and graphical analysis, among others, would reduce the impact of coaching.

The JEE itself will be on the lines of the current JEE (Advanced) and created to test the knowledge in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics; and shall be conducted by the IITs.

Besides norms for the JEE, the expert committee was also tasked with cutting down multiple exams that engineering students now have to sit for, and asked to follow “one exam, one rank” formula. Those qualifying the aptitude test would take the JEE (Advanced). “There will be a cut off to qualify for the JEE (Advanced)”, said a committee member.

Pramod Maheshwari the chief executive of Career Point, a popular Kota-based coaching institute said the government should stop tinkering with the IIT-JEE. In 2016, however, the top two lakh can appear for the JEE-Advanced. “We have seen an increase of 25 per cent in admission since 2012”, said Maheshwari. The HRD Ministry has not announced a timeframe to decide on the matter, but has clarified that JEE 2016 will be conducted in the same way as now, and that the 40 per cent weightage for Class 12 marks for admission to NITs would continue. It will be conducted by the IITs.

The IITs have been recommended to set up a system for developing mock JEE examinations which may help students prepare for the exam and wean them away from the coaching industry.

The committee has now suggested that 40,000 and more ranks should be give to students on the basis of their performance in IIT JEE exam, based on which they can apply to IITs and NITs National Institute of Technology.