Focus to be on the quality, not quantity

The human resource development (HRD) ministry will now focus not on the quantity but on the quality of the students hired in the country’s top engineering schools.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and the companies that hire their graduates have long been complaining that the current system is selecting many who're being heavily tutored in cram schools and not necessarily the most talented.

To take the ministry's strategy forward, a committee has been constituted following several rounds of deliberations earlier this month by the IIT Council and the NIT Council. The committee's terms of reference, which have been reviewed by ET, propose a single admission test and call for a reduction in exam stress levels and the dependence on coaching classes.

The aim is to "reduce exam pressure" and check "coaching dependence... without diluting testing quality", according to the terms of reference.

In line with this, the committee has been tasked with shortening the time the process takes from the current three months between the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and the declaration of results. It has also been asked to "reform counselling for IITs, NITs, IISERs (Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research)" with a single web site to ensure "least difficulty" for students.

At a recent meeting of the IIT and NIT councils, the HRD ministry sought to put the focus on students' interests. It also called for handholding of academically weaker students by mentors among seniors and a grievance redressal cell for students at the NIT Council level. The IITs, NITs and IISERs are all centrally funded. The JEE currently consists of two parts for most aspirants — the Main and the Advanced.

Former HRD minister Kapil Sibal had persuaded the country's premier engineering schools to accord a 40% weight to Class 12 exams to try and relax the stranglehold of coaching centres and ensure that students pay attention to the school curriculum.

The committee, which is supposed to submit its report by November 1, will be headed by Ashok Mishra, chairperson of IIT-Roorkee. Other members are former IIT-Madras Director Prof Anant, Defence Research and Development Organisation scientist Tessy Thomas, IIT-Kharagpur Chairperson Pavan Goenka and Indian Institute of Information Technology Guwahati Mentor Director Gautam Barua.

The JEE is considered one of the toughest admission tests with a high level of difficulty, forcing students to resort to intensive coaching modules.

"The problems of exam pressure and coaching influence on IIT admissions have been there for years now and there are no easy answers even when we know these have to be addressed," the person said on condition of anonymity.

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