IITs seek fee hike and common test with NITs

Updated on: Thursday, September 15, 2011

IIT Council on Wednesday decided to have a common entrance test for IITs/NITs, state government-run and private engineering colleges throughout the country from 2013. It also decided to go in for a complicated fee hike structure. But there is a catch -- both the decisions are subject to approval from the state governments and the finance ministry. In case it does not meet the states' approval, only IITs/NITs - under the central government - would have a common entrance test.

The fee structure decided by the Council, the highest decision-making body of the IITs, is complex. While all students at the time of admission will pay the existing fee, after they pass out 25% of students (other than SCs/STs/OBCs) who can afford the hike of Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh suggested by Anil Kakodkar committee, would be made to pay the amount to their institutions in easy installments.

As to how it would be implemented, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said employers would pay to the IIT. Asked how this would be ensured, Sibal said under the proposed law that would allow dematerialisation of certificates in electronic format, employers would cross-check the validity of certificates from government and then they would be told to pay a part of salary directly to the institute.

But there were no clear answers to other questions: What happens to a student who starts his own business? What happens to students who join a foreign firm in a foreign country? One official asserted that the students would have to sign a bond at the time of admission.

Sibal said the payback by 25% students would not apply if he joins M.Tech and subsequently Ph.D. He would be charged only after he joins a firm. Exception would also be given to students who after Ph.D join the IIT faculty. Reason: There is a dearth of good faculty in IITs. But, Sibal said, the entire formulation on fee has to meet the approval of finance ministry.

As for the common entrance test, what has been decided by the T Ramaswami committee is a new kind of Joint Entrance Examination where weightage would be given to class XII marks of students and a Scholastic Aptitude Test-kind of test. In fact, the committee has given various options and no final decision has been taken on which option will be adopted. Again, as Sibal said it had not been decided how much weightage would be given to class XII marks and the SAT-like test. The marks scored by students in class XII would be `normalized' through a formula devised by experts of the Indian Statistical Institute. But the experts favoured the normalization system after doing a pilot study of only four out of 42 boards in the country. They studied the result patterns of CBSE, ISE, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal Boards.

It also needs to be pointed out that normalization as a method has been abandoned by BITS, Pilani, and even in the USA. Last year, when a committee on JEE reforms under D Acharya, director of IIT, Kharagpur, suggested normalization it was opposed by many state boards.

Times of India

IITs seek fee hike and common test with NITs

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