The conclusion from the work of the latest Nobel Prize in Economics laureates is that for a country to advance, it needs to foster inclusive institutions. The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for IITs is not an inclusive mechanism, as it exists now.
Aspirants study for several years, often at the exclusion of everything else. They lose their childhood and get burnt out. Given that only 2 per cent will get in, it is almost a lottery. Fortunately, it is possible to make JEE more inclusive without affecting the quality.
Several studies have shown that coaching improves chances of success but comes at a high cost. Many from lower economic strata spend more than they can afford to put their children through coaching. While the chances become higher, there is no guarantee that coaching will result in definite success. Such children who feel that they will not succeed can develop guilty feelings, which can transform into suicidal tendencies in extreme cases. The following proposal can address this problem, while allowing the coaching classes to join the mainstream.
According to the All India Survey on Higher Education 2021-22, out of the 39 lakh students who studied engineering, about 29 per cent were women. This is in line with the proportion of women who apply for JEE (30 per cent). Unfortunately, less than 10 per cent used to get into IITs, until a 20 per cent quota was introduced for women. Given that a lot of investment has to be made to clear the JEE, and that our society does not invest in women, quota is the only way out. However, this is not an elegant method.
Things will not be so bad if what one studies for the JEE is useful later on. But that is also not the case. For example, although trigonometry is useful to everyone who plans to be an engineer, a thousand different ways of solving a trigonometry problem are not useful to anyone. From this perspective, we can interpret the problem flagged by McKinsey: Most engineering graduates are unemployable even though many of them would have done well at school and worked hard to prepare for JEE. Preparation for JEE, if implemented as suggested in this article, will improve the employment potential.
Not studying the branch/subject one likes, especially when one is forced to do so, is another serious problem. Allowing the student to make this choice is a possible way out.
Last, but not least is the logistics in conducting the JEE. At present, JEE has to be conducted in a short window between the end of class 12 exams and the onset of the monsoon. Missing this window for any reason creates catastrophic consequences, upsetting the admission to the higher education system across the country.
A new approach
All the top institutions (IITs, BITS Pilani, NIT Trichy, etc.) should be allowed to shift to the mentoring level. They will not teach the first and second-year B.Tech students at their institutions. There will be hundreds of engineering colleges at the next level. It is easy for the students to enrol in one of them based on the branch and location of one’s choice after Class 12. There will not be much stress in this selection, as IITs are not involved at this stage.
At the end of the second year of engineering, entrance exams may be conducted for admission into the third year of engineering in mentoring institutions, mentioned above. Double the number of students may be admitted to mentoring institutions as they will not have first and second-year students. The first two years of engineering courses, in the chosen branch, as given in NPTEL videos, will form the syllabus.
Students who prepare well for the JEE but do not get into a mentoring institution of their choice can continue their education for two more years at their own college, and graduate. They can continue to study using NPTEL courses and graduate as better engineers, with a higher employment potential. This will also increase the number of students available for higher studies and research.
NPTEL courses can continue to be made available free for all necessary subjects, and with local language dubbing. IITs can conduct free online help sessions to answer doubts in all NPTEL courses.
Mentoring institutions should be placed on a pedestal with significant autonomy in academics and finance. In particular, they may be given a free hand on how much tuition/fees they can charge. Colleges that send a large number of students to mentoring institutions can be promoted to the mentoring level. This is a concrete way to identify and reward well-performing colleges. Coaching classes that send a large number of their students to mentoring institutions can also be promoted to the mentoring level.
Better educated, more employable
Some of the requirements of the industry can be met in this method. For example, to get admission into the Computer Science branch of mentoring institutions, all aspirants can be asked to clear a computer programming competency exam. This will send a loud and clear message about the need to learn programming. Compare this with the current situation: Only 1.4 per cent of 36,000 computer science graduates can code correctly and efficiently, according to an Aspiring Minds study.
The proposed approach has great potential to improve the productivity of the IT industry. JEE will become an effective channel to pass on all other required skills to the entire academia.
most read
The entire fourth semester of the college system will be available to conduct the JEE. An MCQ-based exam can be conducted for each discipline to shortlist students based on 10 times the number of available seats, and they can be further asked to clear a problem-solving exam to enter the mentoring institutions. For example, if there are a total of 1,000 seats in chemical engineering, 10,000 can be shortlisted first through MCQ, and the final selection be made through problem-solving. MCQ based exams can be offered more than once. Examinations for different branches can be held at different times, making the selection process a much smaller problem.
The central idea of this proposal is the conviction that the top 2 per cent of the population will be good irrespective of the selection method. The proposed method can be validated through a pilot in a few branches or in select IITs, and if found satisfactory, can be rolled out in all mentoring institutions.
The writer is Emeritus Fellow at IIT Bombay. He was Erach and Meheroo Mehta Advanced Education Technology Chair, Professor at IIT Bombay
