Admission into India’s most prestigious institutes like the Indian Institute of Technology(IITs) and the National Institute of Technology(NITs), is often a day dream for many talented and deserving students, who cannot afford a good coaching, which is necessary to get top ranks in the entrance exam. In short IITs are only accessible to the elite group and for those who can afford for best coaching. In order to curb this situation and to make the IITs and NITs accessible and equitable to all The Joint Council of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) has devised a new examination pattern for the admission in to those institutes.
The IIT Council has decided to hold a common entrance test for the admissions in to IITs/NITs, state government run and private engineering college throughout the country from 2013. The council also decided to hike the fee of the IIT students. However, both the decisions need to be approved by the state governments and the finance ministry. If the respective states do not agree to the proposal, only IITs/NITs would have a common entrance test under the supervision of central government.
Coming to the common entrance test it is a new kind of entrance test which is no way related to the old pattern of JEE. The test would be a Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) – kind of test based on general logic and non-subject matters. The weightage would also be given to the Class XII marks of the students. In fact, the committee has taken various options and no final decision has been taken on how much weightage would be given to class XII marks and the SAT like test.
A special formula will be devised by experts from the Indian Statistical Institute, through which the class XII marks will be normalized and then the SAT test weightage would be added to it. The results of the two tests would be combined for an all India merit list that would form the basis of the admission. Initially, this will be applicable only to the centrally-administered institutes, and the State institute can join after elaborate discussion on the issue.