New Delhi, June 27
Students aspiring to enter the IITs can no longer afford to ignore their school performance. Ending months of controversy with the Government over the proposed structure of the common engineering entrance test (CET), the IITs today finally agreed to join the one-nation, one-test system from 2013 for admission to undergraduate courses.

Their support, however, came subject to recommendations on how the new exam would look and how a candidate’s eligibility for entering IITs would be determined.

The hallmark of the new compromise formula with the Human Resource Development Ministry, which the IIT Council adopted unanimously today and IIT Senates also seemed to agree to, is increased importance to school-leaving exam marks in admission to IIT. At present, a student who cracks the JEE (IIT admission test) gets admission to IITs subject to 60% in Class XII.

But from 2013, 60% marks won’t do. Only those candidates would be eligible for final admissions to IITs who fall in “the top 20 percentile of the successful candidates in the respective board results that year”. Simply out, it means, all top 20% performers in Class XII in each board would become eligible.

In CBSE, on an average, the percentage of marks scored by the last student in the top 20 percentile in Class XII is around 78%. “Our analysis shows that the last student in this bracket in the Uttar Pradesh Board scored 65% in Class XII and in Tamil Nadu Board he scored 78%. We will soon do a data analysis of Class XII results of all 42 state boards in the country and put them on the CBSE website so students have an idea what percentage they must target to enter IITs,” CBSE chief Vineet Joshi said.

Importantly, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal skipped the IIT Council meeting today to allow institutes to take an independent view on the entrance test. He, however, sent a written message to the Council saying coaching institutes had replaced India’s secondary schools and were creating an army of students who can crack entrance tests but not think critically.

Sibal requested the Council to consider the importance of school marks in admissions and end the multiplicity of exams. Currently, India has 100 engineering entrance tests. But now, as the IITs Council agreed today, there will be only two for entry to all centrally-funded technical institutes. The NITs will meet on July 4 to decide how they would select students.

The new formulation (different from the May 28 Council proposal), which even the All India IIIT Faculty Federation Secretary AK Mittal today endorsed, consists of three parts.

First, the Joint Entrance Examination-Main (JEE-Main) will be held around April 2013. Any student can take this MCQ-type test that the CBSE will conduct. It will look like the current AIEEE.

Second, the top 1.5 lakh scorers of JEE Main will for JEE Advanced that IITs will exclusively design and conduct at a gap of about six weeks from JEE Main. Based on JEE Advanced (whose structure IITs will decide) results, All India Ranks for all 1.5 lakh candidates will be prepared. Any institute (NITs/IIITs) can use these scores for induction.

Third, securing All India Rank in JEE Advanced won’t guarantee entry to IITs. Rank holders must also be among the top 20% performers of their respective school board in Class XII for final admission to IIT.

“Candidates in the top 20 percentile of their respective board results of Class XII alone will be eligible to enter IITs. A rank holder must, therefore, do well at school as well. If he falls below the critical mark but figures in the All India Rank, he does not enter the IIT,” explained Prof MM Sharma, chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Madras, who chaired the Council meet in Sibal’s absence.

After the IIT Council decision today, Sibal said, “We have achieved two major objectives today — recognition that school performance matters in IIT admissions and end of multiplicity in exams.” Sibal said under the new system, students would have to concentrate at school. “That was the objective,” he said.