Protests greet IIT exam change

Even as the government announced its decision to change the pattern of IIT examinations from next year, dissent continued to pour in from faculty members and IIT alumni associations on Monday. Vanita Srivastava reports. IIT(JEE): a tale of two exams

Even as the government announced its decision to change the pattern of IIT examinations from next year, dissent continued to pour in from faculty members and IIT alumni associations on Monday.

“When we met HRD minister Kapil Sibal two days ago, he told us that even if there is one voice of dissent to the government proposal, we will not carry it forward. In my understanding, there are enough voices of dissent to the proposal. This is not acceptable to the IIT faculty,” Supreme Court advocate and IIT-Delhi Alumni Association president Somnath Bharti said. “We will not hesitate to approach the courts for seeking a remedy and keeping the IIT’s sanctity intact.”

In a letter to Sibal on Monday, the All India IIT Faculty Federation said that a majority of the IIT senates (5/7) have decided that any changes to the undergraduate admissions should start only from 2014. The federation also suggested that the weightage of the board marks in the main exam should be considered step-wise, starting from 20% to 40% over a period of three years.