Percentile system should continue: IITs

The seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been keen on continuing the percentile norm introduced a year ago for admission into B Tech courses of their institutes in the years to come.

At a recent meeting of Board of Directors of IITs, it was felt that ‘the percentile norm has yielded desired results and it alone can restore the glory of producing the qualitative gems for the industry and research’.

The meeting has reportedly discussed the MHRD’s proposal to abrogate the two-tier system and merger of JEE Main and JEE Advanced from 2015 but did not arrive at a decision on the contentious issue. “Still one more year is there to look into this issue. Our deliberations would continue. In any case, we have to make a review of the changes that were introduced in 2013, which would continue for 2014 as well” Prof Harsh K Gupta, professor at IIT Delhi told a select group of media persons.

“But one should keep in mind that the percentile system was aimed at bringing in quality. It was introduced after one full year of debate, research and taking the entire nation into consideration,” he added.

Observers feel that the new government that takes office in June this year may call the shots with regard to altering the changes in the system. “No doubt, the IITs have functional autonomy and they can decide the modus operandi of admissions. But most of the non-academic directors of IITs and Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) are being appointed by the MHRD. So, they may not go against the decision of the union government. They may have to fall in line with the decisions of MHRD,” Dr K Krishna Chaitanya, Director of Nano Academy said.

It might be recalled that JEE Advanced is the gateway to 15 IITs and Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, but for getting a final IIT ranking these 1,50,000 students need to be in the top 20th percentile of their respective school boards. The top 1,50,000 rank holders of JEE-Main are eligible to write JEE-Advanced, the second part of the two-tier common exam.

This norm has hit hard on the students Andhra Pradesh as well as four southern states and some of them filed cases in High Courts and Supreme Court.

At a meeting held in August last year, the MHRD has proposed an alternative criterion of minimum 75 per cent marks in the school-leaving examination i.e. Intermediate. “The 75 per cent suggestion isn’t iron-clad.

The Joint Admission Board can decide the cut-off will be 80 per cent,” an official said. Faculty of coaching institutes demanded the minimum marks that a student should score for sitting for the JEE beforehand and not after the entrance test is over.

Meanwhile, more than 1.40 lakh students have applied for the JEE Main 2014 from Andhra Pradesh after the extended deadline ended on Monday evening. While nearly 95,000 have applied for off-line exam, scheduled to be held on April 6, the remaining students have opted for CBT (online), which will be held between April 9 and 24.