Mixed reaction to Sibal's IIT move

Updated on: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Nagpur: The Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal's move to raise HSC cut-off for appearing for the IIT Joint Entrance Examination from current 60% to 80-85% created quite a storm in academic circles and also invited criticism from opposition parties. The move, however, evoked mixed reactions from school principals and from those who run coaching classes for the IIT-JEE.

"The move is not reasonable as it will lead to increasing stress on the students," said principal of Delhi Public School (DPS) Akhilesh Chandra Chaturvedi. Slamming Sibal's proposal, Chaturvedi said that it absolutely did not make any sense as children would be in two minds on whether to score above 80% marks or study for IIT-JEE. "What about a child who clears JEE with flying colours, but fails to score 80% in Class XII? What would be his status. Moreover, a child starts preparing for the exam since Class X and results of Class XII are declared somewhere in May end or June. If he scores less than what is proposed, then what happens to his preparations for almost two years and hard-earned money invested by parents? How can one predict child is going to score specific marks? I think it will tremendously add to children's stress levels," Chaturvedi said.

Director of an IIT-JEE coaching class Ritesh Arora also said Sibal's move put students under tremendous pressure to perform at both exams. "Anyway, students clearing IIT-JEE are brilliant ones and their score is in HSC is usually above 80%. But making it mandatory will lead to stress as they will have to pay attention to both Class XII and IIT entrance exam. The move goes against declared desire of HRD ministry to reduce stress among children. Scoring 80% marks should absolutely not be made mandatory," he asserted.

Arora added that the step will actually boost coaching classes business instead of reducing it as students would join them to train for Class XII exam too. "Sibal's intentions were good as he intended to discourage extreme commercialisation of education as has happened at places like Kota, Hyderabad or Mumbai where coaching institutions tie up with schools and charge fees starting from Rs 2.5 lakh. However, the proposed move will not help curb it," he said.

Sibal also found some support for his move. Beena Gokhale, principal of Bhavan's Vidya Mandir, felt raising cut-offs was a good move that would help in bettering education standards. "It makes a lot of sense as children were not paying attention to Class XII. Anyhow, scoring 80% is not that difficult in CBSE

Mixed reaction to Sibal's IIT move

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