An earnest call to return to basics?
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Wide knowledge gap and learning styles among students who have given more importance to JEE than school exams have compelled academicians to take note of the higher education system in India, writes PRISCILLA JEBARAJ
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Photo: K. R. Deepak
Aiming high: Students need to work hard for school exams as well if they want to get admission in the best institutes. –
Should IIT-JEE applicants be required to score 85 per cent in their school board examinations? Union Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal’s statement earlier this week suggesting that the school examination criteria be hiked from 60 to 80 or 85 per cent has raked up the issue again, and with it a whole plethora of concerns about schooling in India, the JEE and coaching centres.
Mr. Sibal calmed the storm by clarifying that it was up to the IIT Council to take a decision on the issue, and saying that the government would not interfere.
However, it is a fact that the IITs themselves have been considering this proposal, and even more radical ones, for over a year now.
Panel opinion
A committee to explore JEE reforms was set up last year, and its chairman V.G. Idichandy, who is also IIT-Madras deputy director, has given it as his personal opinion that the JEE should just be scrapped and only school marks taken into account. Other senior IIT officials have suggested that only the top one or two per cent of students in the board examinations should be allowed to attempt JEE.
Interestingly, it is not only the elite IITs, which are considering such ideas. On the next rung in technical education, the National Institutes of Technology determine entrance through the All India Engineering Entrance Examination. The NITs are now reportedly considering a proposal to raise the eligibility criteria in terms of school marks as well.
Ending monopoly
Apart from reducing the number of candidates who attempt these examinations to a more manageable and realistic level, those who promote such proposals want to reduce the stranglehold that the coaching centre system has on the country. “In many places, coaching centres are defacto replacing the school education system,” warns Sujatha Ramdorai, a member of the National Knowledge Commission.
At large coaching centres such as those in Kota, students effectively drop out of the school system in order to prepare for JEE. They can then scrape through their board examinations to meet the 60 per cent minimum criteria, without having actually attended school for two years.
This can result in a skewed education, which shows up once the student gets to IIT. IIT-M director M.S. Ananth tells the story of a student who arrived at IIT without having mastered the concept of integration despite it being part of the higher secondary mathematics curriculum. He had failed to study it since he felt only three marks were allotted to the topic under JEE.
Apart from such obvious knowledge gaps, IIT professors also point to learning style differences that make it hard to cope for students who have placed more importance on JEE coaching than school exams.
“A sizable number find it difficult because they are used to a tutoring style with a drill of questions and answers,” says an IIT Chemistry professor.
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