The new single Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) being proposed for admission to Indian Institutes Technology/National Institutes of Technology/Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research/Indian Institutes of Information Technology and state government-run engineering colleges would not have a uniform weightage to class XII results.
Sources said while there would be a single-test, class XII weightage would have variations that would cater to needs of different engineering colleges and state governments. For instance, the source said, (Weightage given to
class XII result would be different for admission to IIT and different for other engineering colleges. Weightage would be even state-specific. There would be a band of weightage that institutes and state governments would be free to choose from.)
The source said variation has been devised to deal with concerns of the state governments many of whom felt that due to different system of evaluation in each state students from low-scoring states should not be discriminated. He gave the example of Tamil Nadu, where admission to state-government run engineering colleges is on the basis of class XII marks and not any entrance test.(For states like Tamil Nadu, weightage for class XII has to be different from what it would be in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh,) the source said.
The T Ramasami committee, which is working on new single
JEE, has not made public findings of analysis of past data of school boards that was done by Indian Statistical Institute (
ISI) last year. ISI report accessed by TOI shows that this report was not even made part of any presentation. The report, while analyzing data of CBSE, ICSE, Tamil Nadu board and West Bengal board, found that class XII scores from these boards are not comparable. It said, (Since the subject scores do not appear to be comparable, the question of combining them for comparability of aggregate scores across the boards does not arise.)
Sources said that all attempt is being made to evolve consensus and a meeting of state education ministers has been called later this month. In case, state governments do not come on board, the ministry is planning to go ahead with a single entrance test for Central government-run engineering institutions from 2014.
Dissent from even one state government would mean that single test for all engineering institutions, public and private, would come to a cropper.
Awaiting Review for Nickels
7
