Joint Counselling: Revised Schedule

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.

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

JOINT COUNSELLING: IITs and NITs differ on opinion

Administrators of IITs and NITs stand divided over the Delhi high court's direction to the HRD ministry to conduct common counselling for IITs and NITs. Even as a couple of NIT administrators welcome common counselling, their IIT counterparts seem to differ, stating that it is not a feasible option.

 

The director of one of the older IITs pointed out that currently there was no known acceptable common seat allocation method between centrally funded technical institutions in the country. 

 

“IITs and NITs have different policies to decide variations in tie-resolution and ranking, besides spill over seats for persons in the disability category. In the IIT system, a student can select only one choice during choice filling in counselling but the 30 NITs across the country allow multiple choice filling and spot allocations. This might also cause problems during upgradation,” the director said.

 

Former deputy director and professor emeritus at IIT-M’s ocean engineering department Prof V.G. Idichandy says that common counselling has its own issues as both have different entrance exams. 

 

“NITs admit students using JEE (main) whereas IITs take JEE (advanced). Ranking pattern too differs. If you want to do common counselling, someone has to get equivalence of ranking. All these issues will get resolved if government brings in a single entrance exam for all centrally funded institutions,” he said.

 

The director of the new National Institute of Technology (NIT) welcomed the Delhi high court’s order, as it would be a win-win situation for both institutes and students. 

 

“If we have common counselling, our institutes can share resources and plan accordingly; now we stand as two islands of excellence,” the director said.

 

NIT administrators are also worried about the Delhi HC's direction to allow IITs to fill up vacant seats through lateral entry as their bright students might join IITs in the second year. 

 

“This will create a lot of vacancies in NITs as bright students will move to the IITs in the second year, hence we want government to review this,” the director said. Prof V.G. Idichandy too said that syllabi differ in IITs and NITs so it would not be proper to introduce a lateral entry system in IITs.

JEE COMMON COUNCELLING: Looks Unlikely this year

Speculation about whether there will be ‘common counselling’ for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) this year has still not been put to rest. The possibility of whether a ‘common counselling’ can be ­implemented in 2014 was discussed at a meeting attended by representatives from the human resource development (HRD) ministry, the JEE Advanced Committee, IITs, NITs, the CBSE (which conducts JEE Main) and the National Informatics Centre (that develops the software for the counselling) last week. Sources in the HRD ministry told HT Education that a final call is yet to be taken on the issue. “During the meeting, the NIC experts said that the logic applied in the NIT counselling can be extended to the IITs for common counselling. However, some IIT professors pointed out some anamolies in the software developed by NIC. This is why there may not be common counselling this time but a final call on this is yet to be taken by the secretary, department of higher education. NIC has been asked to revert with a solution. There could be sequential counselling too, where the IITs conduct the first two rounds and NITs conduct the rest; or there could be a joint counselling, where both parties will be coordinating the efforts. The idea of common counselling is to reduce those vacancies where people tend to occupy two seats. There are cases of students who bag seats in not-so-popular courses at the IITs, and they also get seats in NITs in sought-after courses. Such students hold on to both seats and give up one only later, leaving vacant seats,” says an HRD ministry official.

Source: Hindustan Times

Common Councelling For IITs and NITs ???

The government has asked the Indian Institutes of Technology and the National Institutes of Technology to hold common counselling from this year to minimise seats going vacant at these engineering colleges.

But the 16 IITs, a notch above the 30 NITs in the pecking order, had defeated such a plan last year and are expected to oppose the latest Union human resource development ministry directive, too.

Over 600 seats had remained unoccupied in these tech schools last year, apparently because of separate counselling which allows a candidate to receive offers from an IIT and an NIT at the same time.

Such a candidate often hangs on to the coveted IIT seat while waiting to see whether he gets the subject of his choice in one of the NITs, which declare their merit lists a little later.

He thus blocks both seats and quits one only at the last moment, giving the institute hardly any time to fill it before the session begins.

Under the proposed common counselling, a student will receive an offer from only one institute, either an IIT or an NIT, at a time, higher education secretary Ashok Thakur told reporters today. If he rejects that offer, he may be given the option to join another institute.

“Common counselling will reduce the vacancy of seats,” Thakur said.

The 46 engineering schools were supposed to hold common counselling last year, too, and the software had been prepared. But the IITs backed out at the last moment and went ahead with their own counselling in June.

H.C. Gupta, former chairman for the IIT-JEE Advanced exam, said common counselling may not be feasible as the NITs hold their counselling a month after the IITs do.

“The IITs complete their counselling process by June 15 but the NITs wait till June 30 to get the board results, after which they can hold counselling,” Gupta said.

From last year, the IITs have been selecting students purely on the basis of their JEE-Advanced scores while the NITs have been doing so on the basis of the candidates’ JEE Main results and Class XII board marks.

“Our classes start by July 15. The IITs will be late to start their classes if common counselling is done,” Gupta said.

However, an NIT director alleged that the IITs consider themselves a bigger brand and feel that common counselling with the NITs would affect their brand image.

“The NITs too start their classes by July 25, just a few days after the IITs. This delay is not a big issue. This is a form of protectionism by the IITs,” the director said.

About 600 seats remained vacant in the NITs last year and a few in the IITs. In 2012, over 300 seats were wasted in the IITs and a similar number in the NITs.

Source: The Telegraph