Union human resources development minister Kapil Sibal has a fight on his hands with IITs refusing to toe his line on holding a single joint entrance examination for all top engineering colleges of the country. While the IITs fear the move will affect not just their autonomy but also the quality of students coming to them, students themselves are worried it could place them at a disadvantage as the verdict of such an exam could result in an all or nothing scenario, when currently they can bank on a number of other tests, should they fail in one, to gain entry to an engineering college.

“This is not a well thought-out move by Mr Kapil Sibal as it could result in a substandard paper that everybody can do, lowering standards of IITs, that expect a lot more,” says an alumnus of IIT-Bombay, Atul Kapoor, demanding, “Would you rather have students who have answered 250 questions that only require memorising or 10 questions that need some creativity and thought?”

The new entrance test can be justified only under the American system, where scholarships are given to top-ranking students, in his view. “Otherwise, you are going to have students used to taking relatively easy entrance tests suddenly faced with a mammoth task over the next four years,” he warns.

Talking from the point of view of students also, Mr Kaushik Vaideeswaran, an alumnus of IIT- Madras, says the minister’s proposal will concentrate the pressure of a dozen tests in one gargantuan challenge. “For students who have no IIT aspirations and who are happy to appear only for AIEEE, BITSAT (BITS Pilani Admisstion Test) and state exams like CET, this will mean a great deal of unnecessary pressure,” he points out, observing, "There are students who only take the AIEEE and still others who appear just for the CET. Now they will be forced to take an exam which will be on par with the recent IITJEE."

Meanwhile the IIT Council has come up with a proposal of its own. Dean, Academic Course, IIT-Madras, K. Ramamurthy says the council has accepted a suggestion made by it. “Our proposal is to have two exams, one the Joint Entrance Exam and the other, the advanced test for IIT. Both will be conducted the same day, the JEE in the morning and the advanced test in the evening, " he says.

Highlights of Sibal’s new proposal
The Joint Entrance Examination for admission to undergraduate programmes in engineering to be conducted in two parts, JEE-Main and JEE-Advanced.

Marks from Class XII Board or other exams are equalised with the help of a formula. These marks are added to the score obtained in the JEE-Main examination with equal weightage given to both. The students are ranked accordingly. The IITs will screen only fixed number of candidates, for example five times the number of seats available in IITs or those above the cut-off marks. Only selected candidates will be made to go through JEE-Advanced examination. Candidates will be selected for IIT based on their performance in this exam.

For all other Centrally Funded Institutions (CFIs), a 40 per centage weightage to be given for performance in class XII Boards, normalised on percentile basis through an appropriate formula, 30 per cent weightage for performance in JEE-Main and 30 percentage weightage in JEE-advanced and combined merit decided accordingly.

JEE-main tests shall have a multiple choice objective type paper and the nature and modalities of the JEE-Advanced paper to be determined by the Joint Admission Board of IITs. The changes to come into effect from 2013 with both CFTIs and CBSE streams working jointly to facilitate implementation.

The Joint Admission Board (JAB) of the lITs to have complete control in matters of paper setting, evaluation and preparation of the merit list. Expanded Joint Admission Board to be constituted to conduct JEE-Main with CBSE providing the administrative and logistic support.

The process of co-ordination between CBSE and JAB-IITs for implementation of the core curriculum in sciences and maths across the CBSE, ICSE and state boards to come into force immediately.