Message from IIT Kanpur's decision MISINTERPRETED

Yesterday, the Academic Senate of IIT Kanpur passed three resolutions out of which one states that for 2013, IIT Kanpur will conduct its own Entrance Exam.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/full-text-of-iit-kanpurs-resolution-over-conducting-its-own-entrance-test-from-2013-229144

The media has projected it as IIT Kanpur's revolt against the system or that "IIT Kanpur defies Sibbal's proposal." Let me clarify that this is a big misinterpretation of yesterday's important decision.

I strongly believe that IIT Kanpur's decision is not in conflict with the basic ideology that the HRD Ministry has been trying to bring about. In no way is IIT Kanpur against giving school education its due importance.

All that is being sought for the time being is that any change of such magnitude must be supported by proper data and analysis. Yesterday's resolution in only and only for 2013 because it has been decided that IIT Council's proposal shall be studied and reconsidered for 2014. But as for 2013, status quo must be there. Its only to maintain this status quo for UG admissions to IIT Kanpur, that this decision has been taken.

IIT Kanpur is just not in favor of the idea of making changes of this magnitude overnight without proper background study, proper discussion and deliberation and without proper notice being given to the appearing students before implementing this change.  IIT Kanpur wants to provide students appearing in 2013 the same exam for which they have been preparing for the past 1 or 2 years, without any change. In no manner does IIT Kanpur want to separate out itself from other IITs or from the CET (new JEE). Its just that admissions to IIT Kanpur in 2013 must happen in the same way as they were supposed to, before these changes were brought, whatever the need be.

Changes to JEE: IIT Kanpur Students' Opinion

Changes to JEE: IIT Kanpur Students’ Opinion

Recently, I had requested the IIT K students to send me their views regarding the recently announced changes, and based on the replies, I compiled this standpoint, which was further accepted by the IIT K Students' Senate.


The Students of IIT Kanpur strongly condemn the recently announced changes to the
selection procedure of the IITs and vehemently support the stand of IIT Kanpur Faculty
Forum on the same. The proposed single examination for engineering admission is
counterproductive and full of flaws from both an academic, and a social viewpoint. These
changes are bound to increase the stress on students, make the admission system
extremely fragile, corruptible, and luck-based, further aggravating the very problems
these changes seek to address.

Although a large number of exams increase the stress on students, taking the other extreme of
just a single exam is even worse. Having at least two or three alternative exams on different
days with different formats somewhat cushions the weight. Clubbing all exams into one exam
would simply increase the pressure of performance on the students to a great extent and
would make the future of the millions of engineering aspirants of the country dependent on one
single day. This can only accentuate instead of relieving the stress level of the students.
The huge weightage being given to the Board examination raises the immediate question of the
differing levels of fairness, uniformity of standards and transparency among the examinations
of the 42 different boards of the country. While, the proposed normalization of Board Marks
remains untested, we strongly believe that no amount of normalization whatsoever can
completely eliminate the problems of inconsistency, opacity, unfairness, and subjectivity in
the Board exams.

The major contributor to the decline of importance of school education is the below par quality
of education being imparted in the schools, mainly owing to the lack of quality teachers and
availability of necessary resources at higher secondary level in a large number of schools
across the country. Thus, the need of the hour is to raise the quality of education. Attributing
failure of the schooling system to engineering admission tests and the bringing changes to
them without improving the resources fails to address the serious concerns regarding quality of
school education.

A more immediate problem concerns the students slated to appear for Engineering entrance
exams in 2013. Since the exact details of the new system are still far from being finalised,
these students shall be denied the full knowledge of the selection procedure for a considerable
amount of time even now. Thus introducing this system in 2013 can only result in a
marked failure and inevitable stress on the students appearing in 2013 due to contingent
uncertainties.

Further, any decision of such magnitude warrants proper deliberation and consultation with
the actual recipients of the changes, i.e. the IIT fraternity, both students and teachers,
which the concerned authorities have conveniently ignored in this particular matter. The
changes being brought against the wishes of the IIT Senates is an encroachment on the much
needed autonomy of the IIT Senates. Further the decision to affect these changes directly from 2013 instead of 2014, without proper consultation and against all academic advice, raises
several questions over the haste being shown to bring the changes.

Thus, concern for the engineering aspirants, strong desire to keep the admission procedure
fair as well as vehement support for maintaining the autonomy and sovereignty of IIT Senates,
leads the students of IIT Kanpur to express their strong disapproval of the proposed
system and its suggested implementation plan.

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