The Union HRD minister rejected the demand to revisit the new format for admission to the IITs and other centrally funded institutes, saying it was "in the larger interest of the student community".
Union human resources development minister MM Pallam Raju today rejected the demand to revisit the new format for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other centrally funded institutes, saying the new system was "in the larger interest of the student community" and would be held from next year as scheduled.
Pallam Raju's remarks came in the backdrop of the IIT Delhi Alumni Association, which has been opposing the new-format examination, meeting him last week to seek his intervention.
"A lot of thought has gone into it and I think it is in the larger interest of the student community in order to save them a lot of inconvenience. It would be unfair for me to question the good work done so far... We stand to implement it from 2013 onwards," he told reporters.
Aspirants for IITs and other technical institutes like the NITs (National Institutes of Technology) would be appearing for the IIT-JEE next year under a new two-tier format which also gives weightage to the Std XII marks.
The association had maintained that IIT alumni spread across the globe was deeply aggrieved with the change in format of the exam.
Asked if the government was thinking of extending the deadline for the states to meet their obligations under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, Raju replied in the negative.
Though he noted that schools still face a shortfall of about 13.5 lakh teachers as well as of infrastructure, Raju said, "If we continue to extend the deadline, it will not meet the purpose.
"We stand committed to meeting the deadline which is March 2013. We will work with states towards meeting the shortfall, we have to hold the hands of the states, we will have to guide them, coax them, threaten them, and I think we have to work... Eventually we have to meet the objectives of ensuring that education is given to all our kids and all states are committed to that objective," he said.
However, Pallam Raju noted that teachers could be given some grace period to clear the mandatory teacher eligibility test if they have not cleared it.
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