JEE Nationalisation is Key to Admission Transformation

SOURCE:New Indian Express

Two advertisements for admissions on the same day caught my attention. One was for admission to IIMs for the year 2016 and the other was a desperate call by an institution to fill its seats for the current academic year 2015-16. The state of admissions to engineering colleges is no different. On one hand, plans for JEE 2016 have started and on the other, some private colleges are still pushing their ‘agents’ one last time or deploying all sorts of ‘marketing techniques’ to complete the admission process for 2015-16. That admission process cannot go beyond August 15 is law of the land laid down by the Supreme Court in December 2012 in Parshavanath Charitable Trust vs AICTE and no authority has the power to change the admissions schedule finalised by the court. It is also hard to blame the institutions as they are confronted with an equally culpable students and parents community who are trivialising professional college admission to that of hotel or travel booking. With multiple admission offers in students’ hands and decision-making stretched till the last minute, colleges are also in a state of suspended animation in this emerging saga of democratic choice, and in some worse cases, students treat denial of admission to waiting genuine students as their fundamental right. Reward for multiple success! Can the system get better as we move forward? Yes. It can.

Kudos to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) for successfully completing the Joint Counselling for admission to IITs and NITs as directed by the Delhi High Court for the admission year 2015-16. Though there were initial hiccups and some vacant seats, the overall objective of the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) to ensure that the 34,074 seats across 610 degree programmes in 87 institutions was achieved with reasonable success. The number of students who appeared for JEE Main 2015 was more than 13 lakh, and those who got admitted through the JoSAA forms a diminutive 0.25 per cent. While states like Maharashtra, Odisha, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, etc have adopted JEE Main for their state admission counselling, the contribution margin of JEE to India’s professional college admission system still needs to be increased. Can a system that examines the aptitude of over 13 lakh students every year afford to be under-utilised in the guise of individual entrance exams or admission procedure by individual institutions or states? Definitely not.

The way forward: There is a growing sentiment among parents and students on the torturous task of facing multiple entrance exams for admission to professional courses. Every exam seeks to test a student’s general mental ability and fundamental knowledge in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. It is difficult to substantiate that a particular university’s or institution’s entrance exam is unique. The law of thermodynamics or trigonometry or periodic table or human anatomy remains unchanged, whether it is tested for JEE or for any entrance exam. This being so, why allow institutions to conduct own entrance exams and allow it to be an instrument for record application sales? The recent success of JoSAA needs to be sustained and expanded. 

The time has come for a national test facility, and the MHRD-appointed committee to review AICTE is right in its recommendation for a single admission test for engineering and MBA. Students will be eternally thankful to the MHRD if JEE is nationalised beginning with deemed universities in 2016 mandated to use JEE scores, and this will in no way affect their admission rights. Moving forward, if other states are covered, the admission scene in the country will undergo a transformational change. Let the dialogue begin.  vaidhya@sastra.edu

The writer is Dean, Planning & Development, SASTRA University

IMPORTANT INFO: Think Twice before reporting to any Reporting Centre

If you haven't performed very well in JEE and has appeared XII in 2015 and in the back of mind the option of reappearing in JEE 2016 is there, and you have got some seat through JoSAA in joint counselling , then I will advice you to think carefully twice before reporting to a reporting center.

As per the business rules

XVII. ELIGIBILITY TO APPEAR IN JEE (ADVANCED) IN SUBSEQUENT YEARS
58. Candidates who reject allocated seat can appear for JEE (Advanced) 2016 provided they meet all other eligibility requirements.
59. Candidates who accept the allocated seat by reporting at the admitting institute or a reporting center, irrespective of whether they attend classes or not, become ineligible for JEE (Advanced) in subsequent years.
60. Candidates whose admission is cancelled for any reason whatsoever become ineligible to appear to JEE (Advanced) in subsequent years.
61. Candidates who produce forged documents or indulge in acts of cheating are debarred from appearing in JEE (Main) and JEE (Advanced) next [and subsequent] year(s).

Also it says
40. Option to reject (or not accept) the allocated seat: Candidates who want to reject the allocated seat can do so as follows:
(i) By NOT remitting the seat acceptance fee [and hence, not report at the reporting center]
(ii) If the seat acceptance fee has already been remitted, by not reporting at the Reporting Center. Seat acceptance fee will be refunded to such candidates.
41. There is no option to withdraw from seat allocation or to surrender an allocated seat other than by rejecting the seat as mentioned above
42. Candidates who reject allocated seat cannot participate any more in Joint Seat Allocation for the ensuing academic year 2015-16.

JOINT Counselling Postponed: Revised Schedule to be released on 26 June

The filling-in of choices for joint seat allocation (JoSAA 2015) was scheduled to begin on June 25, however, it has been postponed. The reason for the delay has been cited as the non-availability of JEE Main 2015 Paper 1 and JEE Main 2015 Paper 2 ranks.

The revised schedule for students to opt for their choice of course/institution will be released on June 26.

The official website of Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) 2015, for admission to IITs and ISM through JEE Advanced 2015 and to NITs, IIITs, Other GFTIs through JEE Main 2015 was launched on June 23.

CONSOLIDATED SEAT MATRIX FOR ALL COLLEGES IN JEE JOINT COUNCELLING

Seat matrix is now available for all IITs, ISM, NITs, IIITs and other colleges which will be having admissions through JEE joint counselling. You can see them on official JEE ADVANCED website.

1. Seats in IITs and ISM: 10096 out of which 4944 are for General Category.
2. Seats in 30 NITs: 17390 out of which 8548 are for General.
3. Seats in 18 IIITs: 2228 out of which 1084 are for General.
4. Seats in 18 GRTIs: 3741 out of which 2156 are for General.

So total 33455 seats are there out of which 16732 are for General.

IMPORTANT DATES FOR JOINT COUNSELLING of IITs and NITs

GOOD NEWS: IITs-NITs Joint Counselling to start from this year

The Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) had its first meeting at IIT Bombay on 2 May 2015. A Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the Joint Admission Board (JAB), JEE (Advanced) 2015 representing the IITs and ISM Dhanbad and the Central Seat Allocation Board (CSAB) 2015 representing the NITs, IIITs and other technical institutes funded fully or partly by Central or a State government. The business rules for joint seat allocation were finalized. These will be made available on http://jeeadv.iitb.ac.in. Seat allocation for academic programs offered by 88 Institutes will be done jointly through this Authority for the academic year 2015-16. The process of joint seat allocation will commence through a common web portal from 25 June 2015.
(As published on JEE ADVANCED website)

COMMON COUNCELLING: Its NITs Vs IITs

Smriti Irani's human resource development ministry has told Delhi High Court that common counselling for admission into IITs and National Institutes of Technology would begin from the 2015-2016 academic session.

Last week, the IITs were criticised by the court for saying it would not be possible to begin the process this year as the software would not be tested and ready for use before admission counselling starts in June-July.

During counselling, students are asked to furnish their choice of institutes and courses on a priority basis. Top rankers in entrance exams are called first and allotted seats in their preferred institutions.

At present, the IITs and the NITs do their counselling separately, which means a candidate who gets an offer from both institutes can block seats in both and dump one at the last moment. In case of common counselling, a student will get an offer from only one institute - either an IIT or an NIT - at a time.

Last August, the high court had directed the Centre to ensure common counselling for the IITs and NITs from 2015-16 while hearing a PIL filed by Rajeev Kumar, an IIT Kharagpur faculty member.

The HRD ministry had then set up a technical committee to suggest the modalities for common counselling. The committee backed the proposal with a few riders.

But last week, the IITs filed an affidavit saying common counselling may not be possible this year. They suggested the IITs could hold "synchronised admission counselling" with the NITs, so that counselling for both institutions was conducted at the same time but separately.

This prompted the court, which was critical about the delay in fixing the software, to comment: "it is a pity that in the last nearly seven months, the needful has not been achieved." This led the HRD ministry to overrule the IIT decision, sources said.

NIT sources claimed the IITs were deliberately delaying common counselling to perpetuate the public hype about the IITs. Software was not an issue, they alleged.

"The IITs would like to perpetuate in government and the public mind a special status and consequent enhanced funding to the IIT system. In reality, like the caste system, it is hurting Indian technical education," claimed the NIT Rourkela director, Sunil Kumar Sarangi.

But H.C. Gupta, a former chairman of the IIT-JEE (Advanced) exam, said the software was key to common counselling and was not ready.

"Is the software ready? If ready, please demonstrate it to show that it works. The problem is if it does not work, it will give a bad name to IITs," Gupta said.

He said similar efforts had been made in 2013 when he was the JEE-Advanced chairman. But the software could not be tested and the plan had to be deferred.

About 45,000 students get admission to 30 NITs, four Indian Institutes of Information Technology and a few other institutions every year. About 10,000 students are admitted to the IITs and ISM Dhanbad.

Source:Telegraph India

OPINION

Its true that software has to be tested thoroughly before implementation but with this issue in focua from last 2-3 years it should have been ready by now. It seems IIT s are bit reluctant as it might be embarassing especially for newer and lesser prefeered IITs if actually students opt for better NITs before them in a common  councelling.

IIT-NIT Common Counselling: Looks Improbable this year

The admission process for IITs and NITs is likely to remain separate for yet another year as the software for the complete database of students who have cleared the entrance exam and are eligible for counselling is not yet ready.

In an order issued in August 2014, the Delhi High Court had directed that common counselling for IITs and NITs should be implemented from the 2015-16 academic year, after a PIL filed in 2010 had pointed out that a number of seats in the institutes were left vacant because students shifted from one to the other.

On Wednesday, the counsel for IIT-Bombay, which is organising this year’s admissions process, informed the Delhi High Court bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw that the common counselling software would take “at least 3-6 months of testing” before it can be implemented.Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain, who appeared on behalf of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, also told the court that the National Informatics Center was scheduled to demonstrate the first phase of the synchronised counselling software to the IITs on March 24, which would include a common portal to be used by the IITs and NITs to offer seats for admissions on the same date.

“IITs are not able to solve their own software problem, that does not sound right. What do you say to your clients?” the court observed after the counsel for the IITs said that the delay in implementing the common admission system was because the NIC had not provided proper software.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had appeared on behalf of the petitioner, also pointed out that the Ministry of Human Resource Development, in its affidavit filed earlier this year, had stated that the joint seat allocation process will be implemented from this year. Bhushan also pointed out that the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) had created a software to manage admissions last year, which had been rejected by the IITs.

The court has now directed the IIT admissions administration and the ministry to submit its report on the NIC demonstration on March 25, and has observed that the “directions” to have a common counseling system “have to be implemented”.

Source: Indian Express

IITs, NITs to conduct common counselling

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and National Institutes of Technology (NIT) will have a common counselling process for admission from the coming academic year to cut down the tedious process of multiple counselling and start the sessions early.

The technical committee, set up by the Union ministry of HRD to sort out the differences between IITs and NITs counselling, has recommended for joint seat allocation process.

Welcoming the move, chairman of IIT-Kanpur Prof. M. Anandakrishnan said, “We will have separate rankings for IITs and NITs, but counselling would be done on the same platform. IIT-Kanpur will be the nodal agency this year.”

A director of one of the new NITs, on condition of anonymity, said that this help the NITs too as they would get good students. “If a student with rank 3,000 in IIT pool decides to join an NIT, we will be happy to take him rather than a 5,000 rank one from the NIT list,” the director said. He also said that with the new system, both the institutions could complete their admission process early and open commence the classes by August.

Students too are happy with this pattern.

The Technical Committee constituted to sort out the process flow differences between IITs and NITs counsellings has inter-alia recommended for joint seat allocation process, which is likely to be started from the academic year 2015 - 2016. 

This information was given by the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Smt. Smriti Irani in a written reply to the Lok Sabha question.

Source: Deccan chronicle, ET