THE proposed NAT, to replace JEE Advanced, will have English as a subject!!!

SOURCE: DECCAN CHRONICLE

A high level meeting of directors of all Indian Institutes of Technology will be held in the city in the third week of this month to decide the fate of the JEE for admissions to IITs and NITs. The Centre plans to replace the JEE with the National Aptitude Test, which will be conducted along the lines of the SAT in the US.
The new exam will include English as a subject. If approved, it will be in place for the 2017-18 academic year. This has the potential of removing a large number of students who hail from non-English medium streams of education.
IITs are said to be proposing the same two-stage exam for IIT admissions but want to replace first stage “the JEE (Mains)” with the NAT. The JEE (Advanced) will continue as second stage.
In stage-I exam, the IITs directors are proposing to include English as an additional subject since students coming from non-English medium backgrounds were facing difficulties at the IITs where the medium of instruction is English.
The Centre wants to test the English proficiency of students at the screening level. The IITs had held two rounds of discussion earlier.

Helping Hand View: We totally oppose the inclusion of English in such testing system as this will virtually hit the Hindi medium students dream of JEE.

NITs SET TO GO IIT WAY

SOURCE:TELEGRAPH INDIA

The National Institutes of Technology may no longer give weightage to Class XII board marks while admitting BTech students from next year if the institutions and the government have their way.

An NIT director said the institutes, along with other centrally funded technical institutions (CFTIs) like the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), were more likely to admit students on the basis of their JEE Advanced score - like the IITs do.

"There will be no need for giving weightage to board marks," the director told this newspaper.

Under the existing system, the IITs admit students based on how they perform in the JEE Advanced, the second exam in the two-tier test after the CBSE-conducted JEE Main.

Over 12 lakh students appear for the JEE Main, but only the top two lakh are eligible to take the JEE Advanced.

While the IITs don't give weightage to board marks, aspirants need to score at least 75 per cent in their board exam or be among the top 20 percentile holders - irrespective of their performance in JEE Advanced - to be eligible for selection.

The NITs, IIITs and a few other engineering institutions - which don't follow any eligibility criteria but could introduce cut-offs once the weightage for board marks goes - have been admitting students on the basis of a 60:40 system. Under this system, 60 per cent weightage is given to the JEE Main score and 40 per cent to Class XII board marks.

The idea behind the weightage for board marks, introduced under the earlier government, was students would focus more on school education instead of private tuitions to crack entrance exams.

But two panels set up by this government, one headed by IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar and another by Rajat Moona, director-general, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, had recommended scrapping the weightage for board marks while admitting students to the NITs from 2016.

The Moona committee found that the percentage of students taking private coaching had increased after the system of giving weightage to board marks was introduced.

The HRD ministry then set up another panel, headed by IIT Roorkee chairman Ashok Misra. In its report submitted last November, this committee, too, said the weightage given to board marks now for NIT admissions should be scrapped and there should be one engineering entrance test, possibly from 2018.

But aspiring engineers, this panel said, should have to clear a SAT-like National Aptitude Test to be eligible to appear for the entrance exam.

Sources in the HRD ministry said there was agreement among the IITs and other CFTIs that from 2017, students should be admitted based on how they did in their JEE Advanced.

The NIT director this paper spoke to said the JEE Main was likely to stay in 2017, but as a filter for the JEE Advanced.

The Mishra committee suggested that the government set up a national testing service (NTS) as an independent body to conduct the aptitude test, modelled on the SAT, held for admissions to US colleges.

HRD ministry sources said the NTS might be set up this year and start operating from 2018. The aptitude tests, they added, might be held more than once every year so that students can improve their performance.

NUMBER OF JEE ASPIRANTS SHRINKS BY OVER 1 LAKH!!

SOURCE: TIMES OF INDIA
The number of engineering aspirants registering for JEE (Main) has declined for the second year in a row. The numbers have fallen by almost a lakh this year compared to the 50,000 dip recorded last year. CBSE, which conducts the national-level joint entrance examination, received applications from 12.07 lakh aspirants last week. In 2015, 13.04 lakh students had registered for the test.

The fall was even steeper for Maharashtra, where the registrations have dropped by a third over last year. Maharashtra, however, has the highest number of applicants (1.63 lakh) in the country followed by Uttar Pradesh (1.50 lakh).

JEE (Main) is the qualifying exam for admissions to centrally-funded technical institutions such as NITs, IIITs and institutions in the participating states. Of the total numbers of students taking JEE (Main), the top 1.5 lakh are eligible to appear for JEE (Advanced) for admissions to the premier IITs. This year, the IIT Council has decided to shortlist 2 lakh candidates.



Experts attribute the fall to the waning interest in engineering and also to the variety of choices available to students in other professions in the last few years. Vijay Singh, former national coordinator for science Olympiads and a Raja Ramanna Fellow, said, "For the last few years, the impression that an engineering degree does not guarantee you a job has percolated down %to students.

Testing authority planned on lines of SAT, GRE

COURTESY: TIMES OF INDIA
HRD ministry is going to the Cabinet with its proposal to set up National Authority for Testing (NAT). To be established as a society, NTA will be a lean body and conduct aptitude test for class IX, X, XI, XII students.

NAT will consult top experts of psychometrics, both in India and abroad and will even take help of Educational Testing Service that conducts tests like SAT and GRE. For the first few years, NAT will be fully funded by the government but eventually the idea is to make it financially autonomous. "We expect that apart from conducting aptitude tests that will help IITs in filtering students for Joint Entrance Examination, NAT in future will be able to conduct similar tests parallel to other entrance examinations," one official said. "We hope that in future aptitude test score will become mandatory for admission across streams, be it engineering or humanities," he said.

HRD ministry is hopeful that Cabinet clearance will be in place so that NAT tests are conducted at least twice in the first year (likely to be 2017) in order to shortlist 4 lakh students who can appear for JEE. After the first year, NTA will conduct aptitude test four times each year. The tests will be designed to judge the scientific and innovative thinking of candidates and cannot be gamed through coaching. JEE, on the lines of the current JEE (Advanced), will test the students on their knowledge of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. From JEE, ranks will be issued to 40,000-plus students who can seek admission in IITs and NITs based on common counselling.

Explaining the reason behind aptitude test from class IX, one official said, "It will help assess the child correctly. It will also give a better insight into strength of a child so that he can direct his energy in that direction rather than unnecessarily stressing himself for admission to engineering courses."

JEE MAIN: CORRECTION IN APPLICATION FORM PARTICULARS CAN BE DONE FROM 21 JANUARY TO 31 JANUARY

It is brought to the notice of all the aspirant and registered candidates of JEE (Main)- 2016 that the facility for correction in their data (particulars) will be operational on the website www.jeemain.nic.in from 21.01.2016 to 31.01.2016. All the registered candidates for the said examination are advised to visit the website and verify their particulars. They are further advised to make correction in their particulars, if any, on the particulars available in their registration form. The change of city for examination and change of mode from computer based to pen & paper based is not allowed. The candidates are advised to make the corrections, if any, latest by 31.01.2016. Thereafter, no correction in particulars, whatsoever, will be entertained by the JEE Unit under any circumstances. The additional amount (if applicable) should be paid by the candidates through credit/debit card or e-challan in the Canara/ICICI/HDFC/Syndicate Bank during 21.01.2016 to 31.01.2016. Since, it is one time facility, extended to the candidates to avoid any hardship to them; therefore, the candidates are informed to do the correction very carefully because no further chance of correction will be given to the candidates for whatsoever reason.  

BITSAT 2016 NOTIFICATION

The BITSAT is an online entrance test for admissions into the courses of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani .
Applications form are now available for BITSAT-2015
Interested candidates should register for BITSAT-2015 by applying in the prescribed application form at http://www.bitsadmission.com/.

Important dates and deadlines: 

Deadline to apply for BITSAT-2016 : 5 March 2016
Revision/Editing in the application form by candidates : 6 –7 March 2016
Test center allotment and announcement to candidates : 8 March 2016
Candidates to reserve Test dates : 21 March – 10 April 2016
Candidates to download the Hall tickets with instructions : 20 April – 30 April 2016
BITSAT Online tests : 14 May – 28 May 2016
Candidates to apply for admission with 12th marks
and Preferences to Degree programmes : 20 May – 30 June 2016
Admit List and Wait List announcement : 1 July 2016

NEST 2016 FORMS NOW AVAILBLE

National Entrance Screening Test (NEST) is a compulsory test for students seeking admission to National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar and University of Mumbai - Department of Atomic Energy Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (UM-DAE CBS), Mumbai. Both NISER and UM-DAE CBS were set up by Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India in 2007. Their mandate is to train scientific manpower for carrying out cutting edge scientific research and for providing input to scientific programmes of Department of Atomic Energy and other applied science institutions in the country.

Important Dates

• Registration / Online application opens : January 04, 2016 (10:00 am)
• Online application closes : March 04, 2016 (midnight)
• Download of admit card starts : April 15, 2016
• Date of examination : May 28, 2016 (Saturday), 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
• Announcement of results on NEST website : June 17, 2016

CBSE XII SCIENCE DATE SHEET FOR 2016 MAIN EXAMINATION

CBSE XII SCIENCE DATE-SHEET 2016

1 March                                 ENGLISH CORE
5 March                                 PHYSICS
9 March                                CHEMISTRY

14 March                              MATHEMATICS
21 March                              BIOLOGY
26 March                              COMPUTER SCIENCE/INFORMATION PRAC.

28 March                              PHYSICAL EDUCATION

31 March                              ECONOMICS

You can confirm this by downloading datesheet from official link

http://cbse.nic.in/attach/DSHT12%20CHECKED_2016.pdf