Equalising opportunities through National Test Scheme

Updated on: Wednesday, July 06, 2011

At the start of June, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) wrote to the Directors of all IITs, IIITs, IISERs, NITs, IISc. Bangalore, IT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad, besides vice-chancellors of all Central Universities, and chairpersons of UGC/ AICTE/ KVS/ Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, and CBSE, seeking their feedback to the questionnaire prepared by a committee under the chairmanship of T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, on the National Test Scheme (NTS).

The collective feedback the MHRD has received at the end of the first of the six-stage consultation process to provide a final shape to NTS indicates an overwhelmingly positive response.

Most respondents in these institutions favoured the NTS designed to admit students to tertiary education in engineering and sciences based on a single examination evaluation to determine scholastic aptitude as is in vogue in most other countries, instead of multiple tests like Joint Entrance Examination conducted by the IITs, the AIEEE conducted by the CBSE and other entrance tests conducted by States and private engineering institutes.

The Chairman of Central Counselling Board, AIEEE 2011, Sandeep Sanchetti, sees NTS as a welcome development. The NTS, he opines, augurs well with the current situation wherein NITs are fast catching up with IITs. “NITs in Tiruchi, Suratkal and Warangal have the potential to challenge IITs. This despite the IITs enjoying advantages of longer durations of existence, higher funding pattern and flexible cadre schemes.”

Industry partnerships, increasing research orientation, and schemes like Cumulative Professional Development Assistance for knowledge-sharing have enabled NITs to forge ahead, Dr. Sanchetti said, citing the encouraging response they have been receiving for admission under DASA (Direct Admission of Students Abroad) scheme. Dr. Sanchetti, who is also the chairperson for DASA Admission, explained that the capacities of the top-notch performers in both IIT-JEE and AIEEE are bound to be similar. Every year, there are several instances of candidates opting for admission to preferred programmes in NITs of long standing after being allotted seat for programmes with less demand in relatively new IITs. The NTS advocated by the Dr. Ramasamy Committee, Dr. Sanchetti felt, would help in equalising opportunities.

The NTS is motivated by the principle of inclusion for a collaborative excellence rather than exclusion through competitive excellence. Recognising high performers in IIT-JEE as extremely talented, the report however states that “it is not clear as to whether IIT-JEE type examinations are not missing a section of talent base, which should not be missed.”

“Vast majority of youth living in smaller towns and far flung places as well as economically weaker segments of society are not able to join the competitive stream today. For the youth, the future seems to be decided just by success or otherwise in one competitive examination or other. The present system seems to be unwittingly promoting a societal behaviour and a mindset towards differentiation rather than integration,” it states.

The National Test Scheme aims at evaluating the ability of the learners rather than their preparedness; bringing out the latent potentials of the learners to match the emerging opportunities in tertiary education sector and the economy; providing more proportional representation of various regions and parent income levels; bridging the rural-urban divides; reducing the burden of education administration on faculty to ensure their higher participation in research and academic roles; and matching the rigour and process integration of the best among the available national test systems globally.

To make NTS succeed, the Dr. Ramasami Committee is in the process of identifying innovative ways of retaining the diversity of many school boards and yet derive value from the test scores for making decisions by educational institutions. Before giving NTS a final shape, the Committee has embarked on factoring in the responses and views of the States with their various boards; faculty and professional experts; alumni of elite institutions; global experts in evidence-based criteria selection; and statistical experts for a modelling study for reconstruction of past scenario.

Equalising opportunities through National Test Scheme

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