Just as the IIMs had to cope with glitches in their online entrance process, the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) are also drawing flak for the online admissions introduced this year.
Complaints about the new online counselling process being unsafe were echoed by several IIT faculty members, who told HT the new system was not only non-secured but also prone to misuse.
The controversy has its origins in the online counselling system that has replaced physical counselling sessions that were in practice till last year.
IIT freshers choose their stream and the institute where they want to study during the counselling process.
All eligible IIT students now have to do is to feed their registration number and name on the website to select a course and the institution where they would prefer to study.
The website doesn't ask for a password, and once the choices have been made, the software doesn't allow any alteration.
"A student's registration number is not secret and can be known to several others, including competing students," a computer science professor said.
"Rivals can pick a course for any given student in a manner that suits them," he said.
A senior IIT administrator, on the condition of anonymity, admitted "the online system may not be tamper-proof but no evidence has come up to suggest there has been a misuse".
Several IIT teachers - who cannot officially speak to the media under service rules - argued the "non-secure" nature of the online counselling website makes the process open to misuse.
Online counselling also offers less transparency than face-to-face sessions, some students say.
The first round of the counselling is over but the IITs will host a second round to enable students to pick up any vacant seats that were available only to higher ranked students in the first round.
All general category students who earned a rank in the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) this year were asked to visit jee.iitm.ac.in/allotcourses to pick their stream and the institution where they want to study.
The options available to them were based on their rank.
Courtesy : HT
Friday, July 2, 2010
14-year-old tops in IIT Delhi region
Fourteen-year-old Sahal Kaushik, who holds the 33rd rank at all-India level in the IIT JEE exam, emerged the Delhi region topper in the entrance examination.
At the press conference to honor the toppers, Sahal, who was too shy to speak on stage, handed the mike over to his mother Ruchi Kaushik. But that was just for a while, off the stage, the boy giggled with his friend and answered media questions quite comfortably.
"He mixes where he wants to. He has participated in competitions at the international level and mixed very well with everyone," says Ruchi. A doctor by profession, Ruchi was her son's first teacher.
"His basic schooling was mostly at home and I looked after his studies," Ruchi said.
"We got him admitted for Class 10 boards at the Vandana International School in Dwarka. He did all his studies for Class 11 and 12 from Narayana Institute," she informed the media persons.
Asked how she felt about her son performing so well at such a young age, Ruchi said, "He was always a very bright child, so it was not a surprise."
The boy also has to his credit two Asian Physics Olympiad medals -- silver for 2009 and bronze for 2010. Sahal was also a member of Asia School Camp at Japan in 2009 and is a scholar of the prestigious Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana.
Talking about his interest, Sahal said, "I want to do research."
"I will either go for the integrated M.Sc. at IIT Kanpur or for the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research," he says.
Ruchi supports her son, saying, "He can do what he likes. We have never pressurized our children for anything."
His mother says that Sahal is apart from other children not only in his performance but also in his interests and hobbies. Sahal is interested in reading historical books and listening to old songs. Asked about his favorite singer, Sahal said, "It is hard to say who is my favorite but I like Kishore Kumar."
Sahal also breaks the myth of toppers scoring 90 plus in board exams. This topper scored a modest 76 percent in Class 10 and 73 percent in Class 12 board exams.
"He has a sharp brain, does calculations very fast, but fails to express very well on paper. Perhaps that is why he scored less in CBSE exams," Ruchi said. IANS
At the press conference to honor the toppers, Sahal, who was too shy to speak on stage, handed the mike over to his mother Ruchi Kaushik. But that was just for a while, off the stage, the boy giggled with his friend and answered media questions quite comfortably.
"He mixes where he wants to. He has participated in competitions at the international level and mixed very well with everyone," says Ruchi. A doctor by profession, Ruchi was her son's first teacher.
"His basic schooling was mostly at home and I looked after his studies," Ruchi said.
"We got him admitted for Class 10 boards at the Vandana International School in Dwarka. He did all his studies for Class 11 and 12 from Narayana Institute," she informed the media persons.
Asked how she felt about her son performing so well at such a young age, Ruchi said, "He was always a very bright child, so it was not a surprise."
The boy also has to his credit two Asian Physics Olympiad medals -- silver for 2009 and bronze for 2010. Sahal was also a member of Asia School Camp at Japan in 2009 and is a scholar of the prestigious Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana.
Talking about his interest, Sahal said, "I want to do research."
"I will either go for the integrated M.Sc. at IIT Kanpur or for the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research," he says.
Ruchi supports her son, saying, "He can do what he likes. We have never pressurized our children for anything."
His mother says that Sahal is apart from other children not only in his performance but also in his interests and hobbies. Sahal is interested in reading historical books and listening to old songs. Asked about his favorite singer, Sahal said, "It is hard to say who is my favorite but I like Kishore Kumar."
Sahal also breaks the myth of toppers scoring 90 plus in board exams. This topper scored a modest 76 percent in Class 10 and 73 percent in Class 12 board exams.
"He has a sharp brain, does calculations very fast, but fails to express very well on paper. Perhaps that is why he scored less in CBSE exams," Ruchi said. IANS
Move to scrap IIT-JEE, stress on board marks
The IITs and all other engineering schools may soon pick students based more on board examination marks than on entrance test performances, under testing reforms recommended by a panel of IIT directors.Prof Damodar Acharya, Director IIT Kharagpur who headed the key panel.
The panel, appointed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test, modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).
The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, in its report to Sibal accessed by The Telegraph through top panel sources.
Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.
Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations, including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on Physics, Chemistry and Math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.
If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will, for the first time, admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.
The proposed reforms will also be the most wide-reaching changes to India’s undergraduate engineering admission procedure in decades. Over two million students appear for different undergraduate engineering entrance examinations every year. Over 4.5 lakh appeared for Sunday’s IIT-JEE alone.
Officials in the HRD Ministry refused to comment on the report’s contents. But top sources confirmed that Sibal, currently touring New Zealand, has asked his officials to study the report in detail so the ministry can discuss it after he returns on April 15.
The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.
Although the panel was originally intended to propose reforms only for the IIT-JEE, its recommendations, if accepted, will also mean the end of the All India Engineering Entrance Examination and all state-specific common entrance tests.
The new common aptitude test will help admit students to all undergraduate engineering institutions in India, whether run by the Centre, state governments or private managements.
The recommendations indicate that institutions other than the IITs will also be required to give 70 per cent weightage to board examination marks, but do not specifically say so.
The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.
The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.
The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.
The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards. (Courtesy : The Telegraph)
The panel, appointed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test, modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).
The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, in its report to Sibal accessed by The Telegraph through top panel sources.
Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.
Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations, including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on Physics, Chemistry and Math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.
If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will, for the first time, admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.
The proposed reforms will also be the most wide-reaching changes to India’s undergraduate engineering admission procedure in decades. Over two million students appear for different undergraduate engineering entrance examinations every year. Over 4.5 lakh appeared for Sunday’s IIT-JEE alone.
Officials in the HRD Ministry refused to comment on the report’s contents. But top sources confirmed that Sibal, currently touring New Zealand, has asked his officials to study the report in detail so the ministry can discuss it after he returns on April 15.
The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.
Although the panel was originally intended to propose reforms only for the IIT-JEE, its recommendations, if accepted, will also mean the end of the All India Engineering Entrance Examination and all state-specific common entrance tests.
The new common aptitude test will help admit students to all undergraduate engineering institutions in India, whether run by the Centre, state governments or private managements.
The recommendations indicate that institutions other than the IITs will also be required to give 70 per cent weightage to board examination marks, but do not specifically say so.
The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.
The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.
The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.
The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards. (Courtesy : The Telegraph)
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