In defence of the new engineering admission process:
The JEE 2013 results have occasioned many stories about students suffering as a result of the new entrance system. But we should not lose sight of the big picture and why it was important to reform the old admission process.
First, let's remember what the previous system meant for students and parents. At a personal level, my first realisation of the devaluation of school education came more than a decade ago when my son asked me if he could stop attending school classes and instead concentrate on coaching classes for the IIT-JEE exam.
The situation since then has only worsened. In many states it is a common practice for parents to wean their children from schools as early as in class VII to put them onto the coaching assembly line. Seamless tie-ups between coaching outfits and schools tackle mundane issues like attendance. All this appears worthwhile because entry into IITs is seen as a fortune-turner for the family, a dream helped along by flashy headlines about pay packets offered to graduates. But this middle-class dream comes at a huge cost to students and society at large.
Traditionally, most of the boys and girls who crack JEE lack adaptability and depth of knowledge. Many of them may not have seen a lab, nor attended any humanities or language classes or participated in sports. Further, with expensive coaching classes becoming almost a necessity, the decks get really loaded against those who can't afford such classes - like those from rural areas and girls (who are often not considered worth the extra expense of coaching classes).
A recent Assocham survey points out that a majority of middle-class parents have been spending one-third of their monthly income on private tuitions and coaching classes! Further, the size of India's private coaching industry is likely to touch Rs 2.39 lakh crore annually by 2015, which is more than double the Plan allocation for higher education for the whole of the 12th five-year Plan!
Alarm bells about the ineffectiveness of the previous admission system were first raised by the IITs themselves. IIT Madras, for example, underlined a poor connect between the performance of students in the IITs and their rank in the JEE, as compared to a positive correlation with the performance of students in the school boards. Not really a case of "Don't fix it if it ain't broke."
Source:Times of India
The JEE 2013 results have occasioned many stories about students suffering as a result of the new entrance system. But we should not lose sight of the big picture and why it was important to reform the old admission process.
First, let's remember what the previous system meant for students and parents. At a personal level, my first realisation of the devaluation of school education came more than a decade ago when my son asked me if he could stop attending school classes and instead concentrate on coaching classes for the IIT-JEE exam.
The situation since then has only worsened. In many states it is a common practice for parents to wean their children from schools as early as in class VII to put them onto the coaching assembly line. Seamless tie-ups between coaching outfits and schools tackle mundane issues like attendance. All this appears worthwhile because entry into IITs is seen as a fortune-turner for the family, a dream helped along by flashy headlines about pay packets offered to graduates. But this middle-class dream comes at a huge cost to students and society at large.
Traditionally, most of the boys and girls who crack JEE lack adaptability and depth of knowledge. Many of them may not have seen a lab, nor attended any humanities or language classes or participated in sports. Further, with expensive coaching classes becoming almost a necessity, the decks get really loaded against those who can't afford such classes - like those from rural areas and girls (who are often not considered worth the extra expense of coaching classes).
A recent Assocham survey points out that a majority of middle-class parents have been spending one-third of their monthly income on private tuitions and coaching classes! Further, the size of India's private coaching industry is likely to touch Rs 2.39 lakh crore annually by 2015, which is more than double the Plan allocation for higher education for the whole of the 12th five-year Plan!
Alarm bells about the ineffectiveness of the previous admission system were first raised by the IITs themselves. IIT Madras, for example, underlined a poor connect between the performance of students in the IITs and their rank in the JEE, as compared to a positive correlation with the performance of students in the school boards. Not really a case of "Don't fix it if it ain't broke."
Source:Times of India
No comments:
Post a Comment