Indian Institutes of Technology mull proposal to admit BTech students via single entry test

The Indian Institutes of Technology are considering a proposal to admit BTech students through a single national entrance test that will replace the existing two-test system.

A meeting of the IIT Council, the institutes’ apex body, discussed the matter at IIT Bhubaneswar in April.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of the adviser body National Educational Technology Forum, made a presentation for a common admission test for all the centrally funded technical institutions such as the IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).

Currently, the NITs and IIITs admit BTech students through the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main, while the IITs do so via the JEE Advanced, which is open only to the top JEE Main performers. The IISERs hold their own admission tests for their integrated BS-MS course.

“It was decided to have brainstorming sessions in the next 3-4 months to examine the various facets of the issue in light of the assertions of the NEP (National Education Policy), and the overall wellbeing of students across the country,” the minutes of the April meeting say.

Sahasrabudhe told The Telegraph that having to take multiple entrance tests is an ordeal for the students. A single test is enough to judge a student, he said.

“In the US, (universities) admit students based on common tests like the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the Graduate Record Examinations,” he said.

Sahasrabudhe said the proposed test would be held several times a year, and students would be allowed to take it multiple times to improve their performance.

Many private engineering colleges now admit undergraduate students through the JEE Main. They will be able to do so via the single entrance test for the central tech institutes if it becomes a reality.

Sahasrabudhe said the science papers in the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) — through which the central universities admit students to general undergraduate courses — may in the future be integrated with the proposed single test for BTech admissions.

An official with higher education regulator UGC corroborated Sahasrabudhe. He said many students now appear in the science papers in the CUET as well as the JEE Main to keep their options open between a general course and an engineering course. Integrating the two sets of exams would allow these students to take a test in a particular subject only once.

In 2012, when Kapil Sibal was minister for human resource development (education), the IIT Council had discussed turning the JEE Main into a single entrance test for admission to all the central tech schools, including the IITs.

However, the IITs opposed the idea and took it up with then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The proposal was rejected.

Sahasrabudhe said the latest proposal would be discussed within the individual IITs and the other institutions concerned before the IIT Council takes a final decision.