IIT-JEE: Apr 11 meet may end impasse

After stiff opposition by the IITs on the HRD ministry’s proposal to change the pattern of IIT-JEE exam from 2013 — by giving 40% weightage to board marks — a ‘compromise’ formula may evolve for admission, which keeps the weightage proposal intact without diluting the traditional structure of the exam. Vanita Srivastava reports.

After stiff opposition by the IITs on the HRD ministry’s proposal to change the pattern of IIT-JEE exam from 2013 — by giving 40% weightage to board marks — a ‘compromise’ formula may evolve for admission, which keeps the weightage proposal intact without diluting the traditional structure of the exam.

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The ministry has called a meeting on April 11 to discuss the proposal and sort out the issue. The All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIFF), which has not been supporting the proposal, can press for a ‘compromise formula’ in the meeting. This formula could have a structure of a two-tier exam. The first tier ,which could be a filtering exam, may abide by the government’s proposal, including giving 40 % weightage to board exam results. The second phase could be traditional thought building kind of exam to finally get a seat in IIT.

The meeting called by HRD minister Kapil Sibal will be attended by the directors of 7 IITs, chairmen and members of the AIIFF. The minister will meet the directors and the chairmen in the morning hours. He will conduct a separate meeting with the members of the faculty federation in the afternoon.

The AIIFF had recently written a letter to Sibal with a copy to the Prime Minister’s Office stating that the academic issues including the admission standards and process were primarily the sole responsibility of the IIT senate.