21 Jun 2012 10:49:58 IST
, The Telegraph
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Sibal offers trade-off to IITs
Engineering Entrance
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The IITs seem to have won a concession with Kapil Sibal informally offering to drop the planned weightage to admission seekers’ Class XII board marks if the institutes agree to the JEE reforms being implemented from 2013.
However, some members of the faculty — which had led the campaign against the board-mark weightage, even taking it to the Prime Minister — said they were sceptical of verbal communications and were waiting for a written undertaking.
Government sources said the Union human resource development minister’s climb-down came after the Prime Minister had a word with him before leaving for the G20 summit. Manmohan Singh had assured a team of IIT teachers that the dispute would be settled through dialogue and the institutes’ autonomy be kept intact.
Sibal has conceded a second IIT demand by agreeing to allow them to hold the JEE Advanced — the round II of the entrance exam — on any date they want rather than the same day as the CBSE-conducted JEE Main, the round I exam. The IITs had said it would be too stressful for the students to take both exams on the same day.
The ministry’s offer came in the form of a feeler to the chairman of the Joint Admission Board, a body made up by IIT directors that decides the modalities for the IIT-JEE. The chairman has been asked to coordinate with the faculty and senates and get their feedback.
Sources in the ministry as well as the faculty confirmed the offer made by Sibal, who is keen to hold the new JEE from 2013 instead of 2014, as demanded by most of the IIT senates.
Under the original reforms, decided by the Sibal-headed IIT Council on May 28, the IITs would have screened about 50,000 students for the JEE Advanced based on their board and JEE Main scores, each getting equal weightage. These 50,000 were to be ranked only on the basis of their JEE Advanced marks.
Under the modified system now mooted, the board marks will only be an eligibility criterion, as they now are in the existing IIT-JEE system (that is, those failing to secure a cut-off board score will not be considered for admission whatever their performance in the JEE Advanced). The entire screening, therefore, will be done on the basis of the JEE Main scores.
One point that remains unclear is whether the gap between the JEE Main and Advanced will be long enough for the IITs to have another of their wishes: allowing only those who have cleared the Main-based screening to appear in the Advanced.
Several IIT faculty associations — which account for the bulk of senate members — are scheduled to discuss the offer tomorrow. Some others, though, feared that the absence of a formal, written offer left the door open for the ministry or IIT Council to change its mind later.
Vriti Edustore
