Education, Careers & Professional News
IIT speeds up scrutiny
The IITs have decided to open model answers to their entrance test questions to independent scrutiny within days of next year’s Joint Entrance Exam, allowing the public to point out errors that may have slipped through undetected.
IIT Delhi director Surendra Prasad said the institutes had decided to reveal the model answers “promptly” after the 2009 exam, instead of withholding them for months.
The decision was taken earlier this month after an IIT Bombay professor complained to 2008 JEE organisers of a math paper evaluation error that possibly robbed thousands of students of crucial marks.
“The IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB) has decided that we will display the model answers soon after the exam next year. Yes, we were late this year (in revealing answers) but we are learning each year,” Prasad said.
The JAB is the top policy making body of the JEE.
The Telegraph had yesterday revealed a complaint from professor Kapil Dattatraya Joshi pointing out how the IITs had incorrectly evaluated a four-mark multiple-choice math question.
Although the exam was on April 13, the model answers were made public only on August 1. By then, the final merit list had been announced, selected students had chosen their streams, classes were about to commence — and Joshi’s complaint, made on seeing the model answers, was dismissed as “too late”.
“We are yet to finalise exactly how soon after the JEE we will disclose the model answers. Details still need to be worked out but we have decided to do it promptly (after the exam),” Prasad said.
The IITs, in agreeing to the benefits of disclosing answers to questions once entrance tests are over, are ironically following the example of examination systems that once looked up to the JEE as a model.
Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan already make model answers public, 24 hours after the entrance tests — called Common Entrance Tests — to their state engineering colleges. Karnataka also allows students to challenge their scores.
By contrast, 2008 was the first year that the IITs disclosed their model answers.
“The IITs certainly need to do some soul-searching,” said former IIT Delhi director D.P. Kothari.