Date:31/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/edu/2005/01/31/stories/2005013100190500.htm
Why not a hundred IITs? Online testing is the ultimate solution wherein a student can take the test at any time of his choice. Testing times for students A PRIME reason often put forth for the sorry state of technical education and entrance tests for professional courses is the scarcity of seats. For nearly 2,000 IIT seats, two lakh students take the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination). Only one out of 100 is selected. Thus, JEE is a rejection process and not a selection process. The 18 NITs (National Institutes of Technology) put together may have about 7000 seats. Thus, seats in premier technical institutes total around 10,000 for which nearly four lakh students aspire. Among the two lakh taking the JEE, at least the top 10 per cent (20,000) deserve to be in IIT-like institutes. This scarcity has created cut-throat competition. The lure of the IIT is such that a large number of students take the JEE more than once and recent data shows that more than 30 per cent of selected candidates succeed in the second attempt. Thus, the average age of first year students has gone up. As per AICTE (All-India Council for Technical Education) statistics, nearly three lakh engineering seats are available in the country in about 1,200 colleges. In many colleges, there are unfilled branches. Students naturally prefer well-established institutions where seats are limited; hence this mad rush! Remedy A remedy is to increase quality seats and reduce scarcity. A further revealing fact is that seats in leading institutions are limited compared to similar institutes in developed countries such as MIT, Stanford, Caltech and UMIST. It seems China wants to have 100 IIT-like institutions! Why not India? With the tough competition, struggle has increased and coaching centres claim to provide that extra strength to fight. As a corollary, there is a gradual evolution in the quality of tests. It is generally felt that the quality of question papers is getting tougher over the years, aimed at elimination. This means extra coaching over and above the preparation for the board exam. Further, due to popular pressure, the quality of syllabus and testing for the board exams has been diluted over the years. Question papers in board exams tend to be easy, non-challenging, and straight forward, with bright students scoring nearly cent per cent marks. In States admitting students only on board exam score, it is observed that the lower cut-off for some top colleges is as high as 95 per cent. Thus, the gap between the standard of entrance test and that of the board exams tends to increase, needing extra training to bridge the same. What is the solution to this multi-dimensional problem? What is the basis for the solution? Who are the target groups? Whose interest is supreme? There will always be powerful people who will oppose any change. Remember the "TINA" (There is no alternative) factor! But we should be bold and open enough to consider alternatives and implement them if found fair and practical. At this juncture, it is pertinent to look at the procedure followed by MIT of the U.S., a reputed institute. The multiple input on a candidate is considered, which includes school exam marks/rank, SAT (entrance test) score, recommendations by teachers and extra-curricular activities. Multiple inputs are scientific, as they reflect the cumulative potential of the candidate and minimise errors accruing from a single input. Of course, this requires honesty and integrity on the part of the assessor and executor. People question the honesty and credibility of the assessor whenever discretions are allowed, as there are rampant cases of misuse of power and favouritism. While multiple input should be attempted, we may evolve a "least unacceptable" solution. Obvious choice A single, well-conducted all-India entrance test is an obvious choice. All State Governments and institutions must be magnanimous to agree to this novel idea for the sake of students and the country at large, although each can put forth its constitutional arguments. While this may appear to be a drastic transformation, we must move in this direction so that proliferation of tests is avoided. There is no logic in having separate tests for admission to IITs and NITs, both administered by the Human Resource Development Ministry. To start with, we should have a common test for all IITs and NITs. Subsequently, deemed technical universities, private and State colleges may be included. Such a gradual merger may be less painful. Often, a strange argument is put forth against a single test: that it deprives all chances if one falls ill on the test day. Of course, this logic can be extended to any exam. For the sake of a few who fall sick, the majority should not be punished. However, to address this problem, we may have two tests per year, once in six months, and the better score may be considered. Although it is a major exercise involving more than four lakh candidates, it is not insurmountable as the JEE alone handles two lakhs. At present, the majority of students are common to all exams. Computerisation, as followed by the U.S. agency conducting the GRE, is the key. Online testing is the ultimate solution wherein a student can take the test at any time of his choice. With EDUSAT being launched by ISRO in September 2004, an online all-India test would be easy and manageable. The credibility of such a test is paramount. Credibility Having seen from close quarters the working of the JEE system, I can say that this is highly credible because of the dedication and care of IIT functionaries who have a mechanism hard to penetrate. In its 40 years of functioning, the system was breached once, which made all concerned to sit up and rectify. Any new system to command a national trust must be handled by only such functionaries and organisations totally committed to tamper-proof examinations with no external interference. A critical parameter for a single test is to have an acceptable all-India syllabus. Through discussions at appropriate levels, we must evolve a common syllabus for all State and Central boards at least in Science and Mathematics as differing syllabi defy logic and imply that boards differ in quality. This common syllabus must be prescribed for the common test. Students who appear for the board exams should be able to take and succeed in this all-India test without extra preparation or coaching. Even if the emphasis is different, the relevant additional training must be given through formal education. Thus, the coaching industry is made redundant. One has to evolve computerised evaluation and the test has to be based on objective brain-teasing questions to identify bright students. But the evaluation must be totally transparent and the total marks for each candidate must be declared along with rank and percentile. A major aberration in the existing system is to ignore the performance of a candidate in the board exams although a few States try to combine both in some form. We must correct this trend so that the students "go back to school." A rational method I am proposing a "rational" method to combine the scores of the common test and the board exam. While the common test gives a student his/her standing at the all-India level, the board exam reflects the position at the State-level except the CBSE exam. Marks of different boards vary and need normalisation. It can be assumed that the percentile score of students with similar merit would be almost the same in all boards. The marks of the common test can be modulated by multiplying it with percentile of board exams converted on a unit scale. For example, a student with a common test score of 500 and board percentile of 80 (i.e.0.8 on unit scale) would get a net score of 400, which would account for the final selection to an institute after preparing the merit list. A student should attach this marks sheet along with the application for admission to colleges. IITs, NITs, State colleges may cluster the applications, prepare a common merit list and make the selection incorporating the prevalent norms . I hope the proposals presented here would receive due attention at the appropriate level. (Concluded. The first part was published on January 24.) S.S. MURTHY Director, NITK, Surathkal © Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Help save the life of a child. 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