New approach: Perhaps, it is time for a change.
With some planning and restructuring, school time can be freed up for pursuing creative and innovative projects rather than preparing exclusively for JEE
Over 10 lakh students attempt JEE (Joint Entrance Exam) every year. Only if one manages to get the top 3,000 to 5,000 ranks, (0.01% of the total students) will one be able to get a popular branch in the top five to six IITs. Thus, most students, however good they are, will not make it. Three to four lakh students also drop one year to prepare exclusively for JEE.
Most good students in top schools have stopped attending Class XI and XII, as they seriously study for JEE, to the exclusion of everything else. We are thus producing a unidimensional work force. In addition, most undergraduates in every engineering college are burnt out.
Lateral entry
I propose a solution to the JEE issue through an exclusive lateral entry approach into IITs. This will result in the following benefits:
1. Postponement of JEE advanced preparation to colleges, leaving school students alone.
2. Ensuring that IITs conduct their own admission exams, thereby ensuring fairness.
3. Keeping the number of B.Tech graduates through IITs small, only twice of what they produce now.
4. Ensuring that only those who like engineering get into IITs.
I propose that B.Tech admissions into IITs happen in the third year, after students spend two years in engineering colleges. After getting admission into IITs, these students may complete the education of III and IV years, and graduate with a B.Tech degree. It may be a joint degree with the institution that trained them in the first two years of B.Tech.
The entrance exam will be based on the first two years of engineering and science courses that one normally undergoes at the IITs. The syllabus for these exams will be based on the excellent NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning) video courses, freely available to all. If NPTEL videos can be dubbed into all 22 Indian languages, quality study material will be within the reach of motivated students, rich or poor, urban or rural.
The IITs may also mandate that all students who aspire to join the B.Tech course must know how to write at least one working computer programme. Although I mentioned only the IITs, other top institutions such as BITS Pilani and ICT (formerly UDCT) can be included in the above indicated mentoring list. Colleges that routinely send many of its students to the IITs can themselves move over to this mentoring group.
As the portion for the exams is clearly defined, students will know what to study. Help can be given by the IITs to help clear doubts of students. IIT Bombay has successfully been running a programme ‘Ask a Question’ through which its professors have been answering students’ questions.
This activity, spearheaded by the best teachers from all established institutions, can provide free of cost, the extra help a bright student needs, to make the cut.
Joint mentoring
Many of the heads of departments at IIT Bombay gave their personal view that students selected in the manner proposed in this article will do at least as well as the current students.
The IITs can be encouraged to closely work with colleges that send their best students: teacher training, joint guidance of students, joint master’s degree, applying for project grants, and so on. These colleges may also get higher ranking in accreditation and NIRF (National Institutional Ranking Framework) evaluations.
JEE Main will be conducted more or less in the same manner as we do now. Once all top level colleges and the IITs are selected to do the mentoring work, there could be 100 to 200 comparable colleges at the next level, with a total of about 50,000 seats. It should be easy for a good school student to get into any of these seats without extraordinary preparation. It will also be possible for a student to pick and choose a branch of his/her choice.
JEE Main may be kept comparatively simple; as not much distinction needs to be made amongst these 50,000 students. It would then be possible to reduce the syllabus of Class XI and XII, which the government has been trying to do for quite some time. School students will get a lot of free time, to play, create art forms, participate in social work, prepare for science olympiads, and so on.
The science departments of the IITs, freed from the teaching load, can work with smart school students, desirous of carrying out science research. It will also not be necessary for school students to drop a year to prepare for the JEE Main.
The writer is a professor of chemical engineering at IIT Bombay.
