This Sunday close to three lakh students across India have appeared for the Indian Institutes of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), an examination that is arguably one of the toughest examinations in the world for selecting students at the undergraduate level. The JEE system has seen a lot of changes in the past 15 years all of which seem deliberate and with a definite objective.
If one looked at JEE 20 years ago, it was surprisingly a lot tougher than the recent ones. There was heavy focus on problem-solving skills. There was something inherently tough about the paper. The early nineties saw some shifts in JEE. The focus was shifting more to checking fundamental concepts rather than the high degree of problem-solving skills. Objectively viewed, the paper was getting less difficult. What was the reason?
There is a widely held belief that a student who is focused on JEE, neglects school, since it was widely perceived (which is a fact even today) that focusing on CBSE was not good enough to crack JEE. To an extent it was true. So came the parallel system of education?the coaching centres.
The early nineties saw the popularity of these centres increasing exponentially. When
I appeared for JEE in 1989, I remember there were about 90,000 appearing for about 1,700 seats. The proportion is no different now.
But yes, there is one big difference. The amount of preparation that a student goes through has gone up significantly. Hence, the balance between school and JEE is difficult to maintain. And this is why I think JEE started getting a little closer to the CBSE in terms of examination pattern.
The papers were getting a shade simpler. The formats of the paper were also being experimented upon. In the past four years, there have been some very important decisions that have been taken such as??you cannot appear more than twice for JEE, the second attempt cannot be later than one year after class XII?.
I think this is a very good decision. In spite of JEE doing its best, the ?over prepared? still had a slight advantage. A few years ago more than 60% of students in the IITs had multiple attempts. During our days, it was far less. But there is one danger lurking around the corner.
For the past three years inventive formats have been tried out. The paper has turned completely objective. I believe that this can only make the process of taking a test easier. There obviously was something inherently good about a subjective JEE paper. But JEE system is definitely making sure that the screening of the students is robust enough.
What do these pattern changes imply for a student? My belief is that the rigour of scouring a lot of stuff way beyond the CBSE scope would reduce in the future. This would mean that an aspirant for the IITs would find a little more meaning in his or her syllabus being covered in Class XI and Class XII. The big challenge for the JEE system is to preserve the process of selecting only the natural gifted and not the overworked students.
All these changes are aimed at reducing the stress on students. But the moot question is, do these in isolation reduce the stress? The pressure is created not just because of the exam pattern and the ?fear factor? but also because of intense competition of three lakh students vying for a mere five thousand-odd seats. We need enough investment to take in all the talented students appearing for the JEE. Till then, there will be no respite for the JEE aspirant.
?The author is director, Career Launcher India