IIT-B faculty suggests 2-stage JEE pattern

If opinions of the Indian Institute of Technology’s (IIT-B’s) faculty are taken into consideration, the reformed Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) might be divided into two stages.

In the first stage, the candidate will be filtered by including the criterion of board marks, and in the second, the candidate will be ranked for IIT admissions.

On Monday, a special seven-member committee set up by the HRD minister met the IIT-B faculty and presented the reformed IIT-JEE pattern and sought feedback.

“The meeting ended on two important points: The council does not have the senate’s power to decide the admission criteria. Secondly, considering the ambiguity among different boards, the aspect of giving weightage to board marks should be only to filter candidates and not to rank for admission to IITs,” said a professor who attended the meeting.

IIT-B director Devang Khakkar said: “The discussion was prolonged where different concerns related to the reformed JEE pattern were raised by the faculty. These will be communicated to the council.”

The faculty feels it is unfair to give 40% weightage for board marks to be ranked for IIT admissions.

“There are different boards following varied patterns of evaluation and several malpractices have come to light. Moreover, scoring in board examinations depends on rote learning, while competitive examinations are application-based,” the professor added.

Another faculty member said: “There is an option to conduct the examination in two stages. The board exam score can be considered to filter the number of candidates in the first stage. But there should also be an advanced test to decide the candidate’s aptitude and eligibility to enter an IIT.”

“This idea is based on the regular trend. A candidate has to score enough in the board exam to enter an IIT. And, those eligible for IITs after the traditional JEE have been seen scoring well in their boards.”