Tough going for ‘techies’

• No change in JEE format for 2014
• JEE Mains on April 6, JEE Advanced on May 25
• Lack of follow up from top leaders bane for students

BH Ramakrishna

Two thousand fourteen is going to be even more flinty for the aspirants seeking admission into IITs and NITs as the Joint Admission Board (JAB) of IITs rejected to change the format it has devised last year. A meeting of the JAB was held on August 25, has unanimously decided not to yield to the pressures to change the two-tier format. Another meeting of JAB is to take place on September 15 in Kharagpur IIT, which will ratify the decisions of earlier meetings.

The tentative dates of the top all India tech exam were announced. The JEE Mains will be held on April 6, 2014 and the JEE Advanced to be conducted on May 25, 2014. While CBSE to hold the Mains, Kharagpur IIT is going to conduct JEE Advanced next year. The issue of disparity in the normalized percentile system has reportedly come in for discussion and a suggestion to relax the percentile criteria for some Boards which have higher top 20 cut offs. JAB has nixed the proposal outright, it is learnt.

It has reportedly felt that one year’s time is too little to review and effect any changes. “The percentile systems was introduced only last year and let us assess its impact. Most of the IIT faculty were said to be happy about the way the final admissions are done in 2013” a senior professor at IIT Delhi said.

There will not be any subjective mode at IIT Advanced in 2014. This means, AP students will not only have to toil hard but to redraw their strategies to garner more seats at the all India institutions including IITs. As the engineering education is fast collapsing in the state due to social unrest and administrative failures to put in place a perfect, time-bound mechanism, many students are now looking up to national-level institutions. JEE is one such most-sought after exam now and experts believe there would be a spurt in registrations for JEE next year. There was a drop in the qualifiers from 2400 to 1700 this year. This has to be corrected and it is possible only when the coaching institutes train the students in the way that suits to new system, experts felt.

Students from AP have complained of gross injustice in the revised format. While for JEE Mains, the weightage system has become a bane since there is no normalisation across all plus two Board marks; the percentile system adopted for JEE Advanced has drawn flak due to constant changes in cut off marks.

Many students from AP who stood at the top in the common entrance test for JEE Mains- have slipped to lower ranks due to the faulty weightage marks criterion last year. Chief Minister N Kiran kumar Reddy has shot off a letter to HRD Minister MM Pallam Raju, urging him to correct the anomaly in the interests of many bright students of AP but of no avail.

He has made two specific demands: one- Computing the 20 percentile of all students who appeared in Board Exam in full subjects irrespective of the stream. Two: Abolishing the weightage to Class XII (Intermediate) marks and selecting students based on JEE Mains exam only.

There was no follow up from the State leadership on the key issue. Some students knocked the doors of Supreme Court and a final ruling is awaited. As IITs have total academic independence, none can do anything, it is said.

Experts advise the students to be cautious from now onwards, since there is clarity that the revised system has come to stay. Now students can concentrate on scoring as many marks as possible both in theory and practical exams. The cut-off mark this year was 91.89% and it is expected to go up to 94% next year. So, students have to score more marks in practical exams and language subjects as well to improve their percentage. Another important factor that has to be kept in mind is that the average percentage of Inter two years of students will be computed from this year onwards. A one-time waiver was given to AP students this year due to revision of second year text books was not done by the time of notification. So, each and every mark is very valuable, according to Prof K Srinivasa Rao of GITAM University.

Experts advise the students to be cautious from now onwards, since there is clarity that the revised system has come to stay. Now students can concentrate on scoring as many marks as possible both in theory and practical exams. The cut-off mark this year was 91.89% and it is expected to go up to 94% next year. So, students have to score more marks in practical exams and language subjects as well to improve their percentage