Education, Careers & Professional News
IIT-JEE To Be Made Less Strenuous
From next year, the IIT entrance test is likely to get simpler.
Concerned over the immense stress that IIT-JEE puts on thousands of students, the Union HRD ministry has set up a highlevel panel to modify the test pattern.
Of the 1.5 lakh aspirants every year, only 3,500 make it to the seven IITs. To tone down the gruelling test, the ministry has formed a committee with teachers from IITs and representatives of the two +2 level national boards CBSE and ICSE.
According to sources, the first change may be to limit questions to the +2 syllabus. The HRD ministry feels many of the IITJEE questions are based on topics that are not taught at the +2 stage, and are, in fact, of a far advanced standard. This forces candidates to start preparing at least three years in advance from Class IX itself. They overload themselves and this leads to depression, which sometimes leads to suicides, IIT-Kharagpur director SK Dubey told.
Dubey and IIT-JEE chairman VK Tewari are on the committee, which is expected to submit its recommendations by July. The changes could be introduced from IITJEE, 2006.
The government believes the tougher syllabus forces students to neglect their board examinations for IIT-JEE. They also end up spending a lot on coaching classes that claim to be tailormade for the entrance test, said Dubey.
The committee, therefore, is singling out topics that are not taught at the +2 stage anywhere in the country.
These topics will probably be deleted. And every topic that is now included in IIT-JEE will be vetted by the representatives of CBSE and ICSE.
Likely changes
Questions to be limited to +2 syllabus; currently they are of higher standard
All topics covered in IIT-JEE course to be vetted by CBSE, ICSE representatives
Panel will study if current 2-tier system objective-type questions in prelims, subjective in finals should be replaced with uniform system
Panel to work out better schedule; currently candidates take physics, chemistry, maths exams in 6 hrs in 1 day in finals