Who said IIT aspirants take boards lightly?

Devdeep Ray, who stood third in Maharashtra state with an all-India rank of 13 in the IIT-JEE results, scored 95.4% in Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) Examination.

Pratik Fegade, who came 4th in the state with all-India rank of 16 in IIT-JEE, scored 94% in the HSC.

IIT aspirants have come out with flying colours, proving those wrong who think that they do not give importance to board examination.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development’s (MHRD) plan of introducing 40% weightage to board marks for entry into IIT hinged on the reason that students ignore board examination while preparing for entrance tests.

Many IIT-JEE (Indian Institute of Technology – Joint Entrance Examination) rankers were seen among the HSC high scorers.

The MHRD’s decision has met with opposition in the circle of IITs. It has proposed replacing the multiple entrance tests conducted by states, private engineering schools, and the IIT-JEE and the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) with a single test across the country.

The single test is aimed at reducing the stress of taking multiple tests for students just out of Class 12, reducing dependency on coaching institutes which promote learning by rote, and reinforcing the importance of school education.

“It is a wrong notion that students preparing for competitive examinations totally ignore the board examination. We have proofs now of students who have done well in board examination while preparing for the IITJEE and other competitive entrance examinations for engineering courses,” said Praveen Tyagi, managing director of the IITian’s PACE, a coaching class for IITJEE preparation.

An IIT-B professor said that students aspiring for admission to IITs are generally those who have been performing well consistently in schools. “So they are not likely to ignore school studies for ministry to make them understand the importance of board examination,” he said.