Do We Need Regional Engineering Entrance Examinations ???

While everyone has been discussing whether or not we need the ISEET (chances are that ISEET will be called JEE – Joint Entrance Examination), let us turn the issue around and ask ourselves whether or not we need the current regional engineering entrance examinations. The answer to this question will help us in approaching the discussion from a different point of view and might hopefully guide us to decide for the better.

Let us first think from the point of view of Regional Colleges. Three important questions to ask are - What do regional engineering entrance examinations test in candidates? What other purposes do these regional examinations serve? Will the same purposes be served with the common ISEET?

All the regional engineering entrance examinations are primarily based on Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. Though the syllabus of these three courses for each regional engineering entrance examination is a little different from the other, all these examinations test advance skills with basic knowledge of students in the three courses. These examinations also test the speed as well as quick judgment (which questions to leave and which ones to attempt along with time management while writing the examination) of the applicants. Now, if these regional examinations are replaced by a common test like ISEET that tests the same qualities, it should not make much of a difference.This makes us infer that with the advent of ISEET, we can safely bid adieu to regional examinations without affecting the quality of selection criteria and students entering the engineering colleges.

One other purpose that regional examinations purportedly serve for the respective regional college is maintaining a distinguished brand of the college and ensuring control of the college over all its affairs including entrance examinations. Having the college's own entrance examination conveys to the masses that the college is capable enough of conducting its own entrance examination. But to me, the attributes that would differentiate the brand of any regional college more and would prove its capabilities would be the level of research carried out and papers published, quality of Professors and quality of admitted students.The common ISEET will relieve the regional colleges of the time and energy - consuming headache of conducting examinations, thus ensuring that these regional colleges focus more on the core areas that make an institution stand out from the rest.Inevitable costs of conducting examinations could then be avoided and channelized into other improvement areas for the college. This point again tilts the scale against the need of regional examinations.

Regional colleges usually have reservations as high as 80% for applicants of the respective state and the balance is for Rest of India. Apart from these percentages, there are Management Quota Seats that the colleges fill up with candidates who give huge sums of money as donations. Without regional examinations (i. e. with ISEET) too, the regional colleges could still have the same reservation percentages and be totally fine. The only change that will happen(and that too in the positive sense) in this case would be the increase in diversity of students from Rest of India coming to regional colleges. This point again leads us to question the need of regional examinations.

Students are the future of India. No article or discussion can be complete without thinking from their point of view.

The low percentage of seats allotted for Rest of India often acts as a deterrent for many talented students who decide against taking the regional college examinations of some states that have reputed colleges.Students have to spend a lot of money traveling to the respective states to take examinations and compete for as low as 20% of seats. For example, VJTI Mumbai is a great college but many aspirants from North India do not even fill up its entrance examination form due to this very reason. If there are no regional examinations, there will be ISEET and when there will be ISEET, the deterrence will be somewhat diluted because the students will not have to do anything extra to fight for the 20% seats. They would just have to fill up the application forms. Quite often, the date of regional examination of one state is in close vicinity of the examination date of some other state, thus limiting the students' options with respect to colleges.Without separate regional examinations, the students will have broader options both in terms of colleges and in terms of specializations (Computer Science, Electronics, Mechanical, etc.). They will also be able to take admission in the course of their interest.

Needless to mention, students will save a lot financially by not traveling to each state to take its regional examination. The students and their parents will of course have to shell out money to travel for the Counseling sessions at different regional colleges after the examination results but they would have to incur these costs even with regional examinations in place.

Added to all of the above, the students will not have to bother to prepare separately for each regional examination, which again will relieve them.

We can therefore conclude that a common exam like ISEET will make the regional engineering entrance examinations redundant. In fact, without regional examinations,regional colleges, students and their parents would actually be better off.

As I finish this article, there are two major concerns rocking my mind. One, if only ISEET could be conducted multiple times a year(like SAT, GRE, GMAT, etc.),it would have been a win-win decision (because if a student falls ill or is not able to take the ISEET on the single ISEET date due to some unavoidable circumstances, her/his life will be ruined). Two, with weightage also given to Class XII Board Examination marks, the pressure on students will increase because now they will have to worry about their Board Examinations as well as ISEET (Earlier, students could score 65 – 70% in Class XII Board Examinations and still end up in a good college by scoring well in the entrance examinations).

With fingers crossed, I just hope my article reaches the Government and they take corrective actions to help the future of India.

ISEET to benefit Coaching Institutes !

News: "ISEET, the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test will be successor to the JEE and AIEEE. This new SAT-style exam will come into force in 2013. It will do away with multiple entrance examinations and reduce the stress levels of students. ISEET will have two parts, Main and Advance, each of three hours duration. Both tests will be given on the same day, between 10 am and 5 pm. ISEET 2013 will be held in either April or May.

ISEET will be objective-type exam and will test comprehension, critical thinking and logical reasoning. Its advance level will test problem-solving ability in basic science subjects. Both the tests together will indicate a candidate's scholastic level and aptitude for science and engineering."

Despite severe opposition from the IIT Alumni Network, one of the world's most dreaded examinations, IIT-JEE has somewhat been done away with and so have numerous other regional and national level engineering entrance examinations in India. For admission to IITs and NITs, about 40% weightage will be given to Class XII Board Examination marks and the remaining 60% weightage will be assigned to the ISEET (the common test that will replace all engineering entrance examinations). For Regional Engineering Colleges, the corresponding State can play with the weightage to the same components but the amplitude of variation will not be much. Whether or not this move by HRD Ministry is correct does not matter anymore. What does matter now is how the landscape would change for the parties involved – Coaching Institutions, Students, IITs, Schools, Publishers, etc.

Since the objective of this move by the HRD Ministry was mainly to squeeze Coaching Institutes out of business, let me limit the scope of this article to the effect of this change on Coaching Institutes.

Whenever we talk about Coaching Institutes, the first thing that strikes our mind is Kota. Each year, almost a lakh aspiring students from across the country go to Kota for their IIT-JEE preparation at Coaching Institutes like Bansal Classes, ALLEN, etc. Students start taking admission tests for these institutes even before their Class X Board Examinations. Students who get admission to any of the institutes automatically get admission to a school with which that particular institute has a tie-up. The student is not required to go to school regularly. She/he instead attends classes at the Coaching Institute. At the end of 2 years, the student just has to take the Board Examinations under the name of her/his school. If you go through the data of Class XII Board Examination marks of students preparing for IIT-JEE at Kota, you will find majority of students getting percentages not too far from the cut-off of 60% required to take IIT-JEE. This is because the focus at such institutes is always on the Engineering Entrance Examinations – be it IIT-JEE, AIEEE or any other.

The case discussed above is the same across the country at institutes where there are more than 2000 students enrolled, for example FIITJEE – New Delhi, K. C. Sinha Classes – New Delhi, Srijan Classes – Patna, JRS - Varanasi, Narayana Hyderabad, etc.

For smaller institutes and institutes that do not have tie-ups with schools, if students want to study at their center, they take admission to a school that does not have strict minimum attendance criterion (Government schools) or they juggle with their school classes and institute classes (I have done this jugglery in my time to qualify IIT-JEE and score among the toppers in Board Examination in the same year and trust me, it gets very difficult to maintain sanity).

To study the effects of the merger of all examinations into one ISEET on Coaching Institutes, let us divide the engineering admission evaluation from 2013 in two parts – (1) ISEET, (2) Class XII Board Examinations.

Coaching Institutes have nothing to worry as far as the ISEET is concerned. To help students rein ISEET, schools are not currently adequately equipped. I am not saying that schools do not have talented teachers. They do but their number is less and their mindset is tuned to Board Examinations rather than Competitive Engineering Entrance Examinations like IIT-JEE, AIEEE (until this year) or ISEET (from next year onwards). Schools also do not have sufficient time to groom the students for ISEET due to limited number of hours each day with holidays and vacations around the year unlike Coaching Institutes that can be comparatively more flexible in the number of hours of study, holidays and vacations. It is not even worth talking about the state of Government schools where majority of the low-income group people send their kids. At these schools, both the quality and attendance of the teachers are pathetic thus leaving no option to such kids other than relying on Coaching Institutes to enlighten their career.

The ISEET will be a one-day affair (or a two-day affair if the candidate chooses to use both of his maximum of two attempts at ISEET) that will decide the future of the aspiring students. Earlier, the risks were diversified as there were separate examinations for different Engineering colleges and not, just one combined test. With such risks involved from next year onwards, no student or parent would ever take a chance by not opting for a Coaching Institute.

So, Coaching Institutes will now become a must for students contrary to what the HRD Ministry and the IIT Council actually wanted. The only option available to students is to go to these institutes. Even poor parents would now have to shell out their entire life's savings to send their kids to these Institutes. The market size of Coaching Institutes is hence, expected to increase.

The challenge for Coaching Institutes will however be to predict the new examination pattern and teach accordingly and this is going to be a big problem for them. There will be some chaos about the new pattern of examination until the examination is first conducted in 2013 or until IITs publish a sample paper before 2013. Therefore, a lot of students might be misguided this year. Keeping this in mind, for next one year, more students will look to enroll at institutes that have bigger and reputed brand names like FIITJEE, K. C. Sinha Classes – New Delhi, Srijan Classes – Patna, etc.

The other significant effect would be an increase in tie-ups of institutes with schools and vice versa. In case of smaller institutes, the institute teachers might go to the school to conduct classes on behalf of the institute, especially for ISEET.

With 40% weightage being assigned to Class XII Board Examination marks, the Coaching Institutes will now modify their approach a bit and also start teaching for the Class XII Board Examinations. They will have to manage time more efficiently to cover the +2 portion for the students. They will also have to increase the number of hours of study at their center, which in turn would increase their pricing (tuition fees).

For the students to score high in their Class XII Board Examinations, the institutes will also now hire teachers for English, Hindi, Computers, Economics, etc. as opposed to having teachers only for Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry currently. This will increase the cost to the institutes again leading to an increase in fees for the students. The institutes will however keep an option for students to not opt for the Board Examination preparation at their center.

To cater to students going to schools affiliated to different boards (CBSE, ICSE, State Boards), the coaching institutes will have to make separate batches for each Board as there is a difference in the syllabi of Boards.

I have been to quite a few villages and small towns where if you pay the School Principal and/or invigilator a good amount, he will arrange for a separate room for your kid to take Board Examinations with text-books open. Even after examinations, I have heard influential people paying hefty sum of money to the teachers who correct the examination papers (and this happens mostly in case of State Board affiliated schools) to manipulate the marks. Now, Coaching Institutes and also common people would be paying huge amounts to the School Principals and/or invigilators for their kids to score more in their Board Examinations illegally.

The worst part of the current move by HRD Ministry is that the Coaching industry will become even more fragmented. More coaching institutes will open now, even those that would not be capable of teaching IIT level would open up their centers and claim to be training institutes for admission to IITs. The move will also prove a blessing for school teachers who would encourage their students to enroll for private tuition with them.

As far as I think, in a few years, the ISEET will go online. So, institutes should start strategizing right away in that direction. Last but not the least, the Coaching Institutes will also start diversifying their focus to other competitive examinations like the entrance examinations for the Medical Colleges.

What also needs mention is that it does not matter how hard the HRD Ministry tries to eliminate Coaching Institutes, these institutes will always be there. Even if one changes the admission criteria for IITs and other Engineering Colleges to be something as basic as tying one's shoelace, the Coaching Institutes will still be there preparing students to tie their shoelace in the most innovative way.

In today's world, it's always "survival of the fittest" and in the case at hand, I have to say that the Coaching Institutes (and not our schools) will prove the fittest.