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.
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