IIT directors discuss compromise formula

Ahead of next week's meeting called by the government on the single entrance exam row, Indian Institute of technology (IIT) directors on Saturday discussed a compromise formula which includes a proposal to take top 20-30 students based on percentile ranking of respective boards for preparing the merit list.

Indications are that the percentile criterion replacing the proposed format of giving weightage to board results were deliberated at the Joint Admission Board (JAB) meeting, comprising IIT directors, as an alternative, possibly drawing a near unanimity.

The proposal is believed to have been mooted by the HRD Ministry and floated among the directors to end the impasse.

The percentile criterion along with performance in the JEE-Main will be used for selecting around 50,000 students and their score at the advanced test conducted by IITs will be taken into account to prepare the merit list for admission to IITs.

IIT senates are expected to deliberate on this after its approval at the IIT council meet.

The JAB has been conducting the IIT entrance test for 50 years. The meeting also evaluated the conduct of IIT-JEE 2012.

Insiders also suggested that some directors were averse to discussing the proposed test at the JAB and insisted that issue be deliberated only at the special IIT council meet.

The IIT council, the highest decision-making body headed by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal includes Directors of all the 16 IITs, heads of educational bodies like UGC and AICTE among others.

On the other hand, the IIT faculty federation, in a statement, appreciated the council meeting called by Sibal and hoped for an amicable solution to emerge.

"We appreciate that the minister has called IIT Council meeting on June 27, 2012 to address the concerns of IIT community. Through this process of discussion and engagement, we are confident that an amicable solution will emerge that would be acceptable to all, without compromising on the IITs autonomy."

The JAB meeting today came in the backdrop of IIT Delhi and Kanpur rejecting the government proposal and deciding to have a separate exam. There are indications that IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur may follow their Delhi and Kanpur counterparts.

The IIT Council on June 23 will discuss the situation created by the divisions among the elite educational institutions by the government proposal and the future course of action to end uncertainty among the student community.