HRD MINISTER KAPIL Sibal’s recent statement that the JEE eligibility criteria might see more weightage given to Class XII scores in the coming years may have caused an uproar in some states but this view is not new to the IIT fraternity. The subject had actually been hotly debated in the fraternity earlier and even found favour with it as a means to check the mushrooming coaching institutes.

In 2005, the Joint Admission Board constituted a committee to review the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and this committee expressed strong reservation about coaching institutions which they felt were skewing the pattern and quality of entrants into IITs. The committee had recommended minimum eligible marks in Board exams for admission to IITs and a machine gradable type JEE. These recommendations were discussed again as recently as August 23 this year.

The committee had noted in its report how “the coaching institutions for JEE have grown to mammoth proportions”. “Their sole aim is to teach students to ‘crack’ the JEE. Intensive coaching for three to four years appears to ‘burn the students out’ killing all their creativity and ability to think independently. Thus, the quality of a significant fraction of students gaining admission through this process is cause for serious concern. With the suggested reform (of increasing Class XII score cut-off eligibility criteria), it is hoped that the coaching institutions will shift their focus to the Board exam,” this committee had said in its recommendations.

The committee had also said that coaching institutions were “making a mockery of our school education, exploiting the vulnerability of the students and parents”. Reiterating that the JEE was meant to find students with “raw intelligence at the Higher Secondary level”, the committee rued the fact that the JEE had instead become an examination which can be cleared only by the coached.

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