Nation edit: Best possible test

The Union human resources development ministry and the Indian Institutes of Technology deserve praise for having at last resolved their disagreement over the new pattern, to be introduced from next year, for the joint entrance examination.

The unseemly spectacle of one IIT after another excusing itself from participation in the proposed common entrance test for engineering colleges across the country would have throttled HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s grand plan before it was born.

The ‘compromise’ formula strikes a reasonable balance between the ministry’s desire to give due importance to the Std XII board exams and the IITs’ desire to ensure that there is no dilution of their standards and, consequently, of their brand equity. If everything goes to plan, the new pattern may even have the eminently desirable effect of further improving the standards of the IITs’ intake.

While all other engineering colleges will now follow the ministry’s original plan of considering the Std XII marks of an aspirant along with her performance in the CET, the IITs will take the creme de la creme of the lot — those who crack the CET and also finish among the top 20% of their respective boards — and put them through an advanced test.

What this may mean for the ‘student stress’ that the minister appears to have made his life’s mission to exterminate is another matter. Some students already fear that their stress levels will increase, because they will not only have to ace the CET, but they will also have be in the top 20% of their state boards when earlier a mere 60% score would have sufficed.

That fear, however, may be misplaced because rare indeed is the student who gets through the IIT-JEE, as it was known until this year, but only manages a first class in Std XII.