Will Merging Of JEE & AIEEE Lower IIT Standards?

A leading Engineering tutorial institute in Kolkata FIIT JEE has voiced concerns over the proposed move of the government in order to merge IIT JEE and AIEEE exams and claimed that it could lower the quality of prestigious IIT's.

A Director of FIIT JEE Limited RL Trikha reports as “This decision will lower the standards of IIT. Also, IIT's have already been criticized for lack of quality and this decision may be a big blow as we do not know what change will follow in the opening and closing ranks of IIT's”.

He also said “JEE was a major factor that gave IIT's the exclusively that they command today. A student preparing for JEE prepared for the test with the sole purpose of entering IIT and not a regional Engineering college”. The recent decision of the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development of merging IIT Joint Entrance Exams (JEE) and AIEEE – All India Engineering Entrance Exam has stirred mixed reaction among students and academicians.

Trikha also contended that “School boards like CBSE, ICSE are easier to score than compared to state boards. This is unfair to students appearing for state boards compared to CBSE. For states like Bihar, the state board awards lower marks than the national boards”. In case everything falls in place by 2013, then there will be a common entrance test for all government engineering colleges. Another significant change is that along with the test scores, a student’s 12th standard marks will have 40% weightage.

To overcome this effect he suggested that better option would be to have multiple rounds of screening tests, rather than giving 40% weightage to class 12th results.

An official from FIIT JEE said “There is also a need for uniform syllabus, since different boards have different marking systems, which needs to be standardized. And lastly, students will face immense pressure as there's a single exam to make it or break it”.