A firestorm of protests erupted within the IITs and their alumni associations worldwide after Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal abolished the rigorous IIT-JEE (joint entrance examination), replacing it with a common entrance exam for all applicants to Central government-funded engineering and technology colleges. Dilip Thakore reports

In the end after the faculties of several Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) hoisted banners of revolt against the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry, a compromise was reached on June 27. But once again the academic and administrative autonomy of India’s globally most famous brand was threatened, and it was a close shave. Throughout the month ended June 27, and for the third time in the new millennium, the country’s 16 renowned IITs and especially the seven premier IITs sited in Mumbai, Delhi, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Chennai, Guwahati and Roorkee, hosting over 27,500 of the country’s brightest and best science and engineering students, were in deep turmoil, provoking some of them to declare war against the powerful Union HRD ministry in New Delhi, and minister Kapil Sibal in particular.

This time round the casus belli was Sibal’s bolt-out-of-the-blue end May  pronouncement abolishing the IIT-JEE (joint entrance examination) conducted annually by IITs, which has earned the reputation of being the world’s most selective undergraduate entrance exam written by over 500,000 Plus Two school-leavers annually. Sibal’s diktat was to replace IIT-JEE with a common entrance exam for all applicants to Central government-funded engineering and technology colleges including 30 NITs (National Institutes of Technology) and four IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology), all of whom provide highly subsidised education to the cream of the country’s science (physics, chemistry and maths) students.

On May 28, in a burst of nationalist passion, proclaiming “one nation, one test” after a reported five-hour joint meeting with the councils of IITs, NITs and IIITs  attended by directors and chairmen of  their boards and eminent member academics, Sibal abolished IIT-JEE stating that after two years of deliberations a consensus had been reached by the councils. Under the new format, the single IIT-JEE was to be split into two exams — JEE Main and JEE Advanced with the former being an MCQ (multiple choice questions) test in PCM (physics, chemistry, mathematics) similar to the AIEEE (All India Engineering Entrance Examination) format, and the latter a concepts testing exam conducted by the IITs. Moreover, to ensure that students pay adequate attention to their higher secondary studies, the class XII mark sheets of 42 school examination boards countrywide converted to normalised percentiles were to be given a 40 percent weightage for  admission into IITs.

The initial reaction to a common entrance examination for the country’s 64 Central government-funded and most highly ranked and rated engineering and technology colleges offering undergraduate and postgrad education, was resigned silence. However, when the implications of the complex new common entrance exam — particularly the 40 percent weightage given to class XII school-leaving exam scores followed by the main and advanced exams — were carefully examined by the dons of the country’s premier IITs which have painstakingly built these institutes a global reputation over the past 60 years, a firestorm of protests erupted within the IITs and their alumini associations worldwide.

According to Sibal (whose office routinely declines EducationWorld interview requests), the rationale of the common entrance exam is that the stress students experience of having to write several entrance exams will be reduced, the increasingly neglected class XII board exam will be given greater respect and the impact of the country’s ubiquitous coaching schools which drill and prepare students to top IIT-JEE will be reduced. And with the Supreme Court having ruled that school board exam results must be declared by May every year, the proposed common entrance exam should be conducted from 2013 onwards, pronounced Sibal.

“In India each child has to look for a university or college and then he has to sit for 30-35 exams (i.e. papers). The mental stress and torture of having to write 30-35 exams is not fair to parents as well as to children. The other thing is that the school system must be accorded its integrity. The class XII board (exam) is exceptionally important. I think that any process of admission should take that into account. So these are the objectives (of the common entrance exam),” said Sibal addressing the media on the sidelines of the Indo-US dialogue on higher education in New York (Economic Times, June 13).

This explanation — and particularly the alacrity with which the common entrance exam was proposed to be introduced next year — didn’t cut much ice with a large number of academics. In particular, the faculty of IIT-Kanpur (estb. 1951) roundly condemned the proposal to shift to the new exam and its senate — the body which within each IIT determines “standards of instruction, education and exam-ination” under s.15 of the Institutes of Technology Act 1961 — forced a resolution from the IIT-K management to conduct its own entrance examination next year. On June 22 the IIT-Delhi management also resolved to conduct its own examination next year.

“It’s not our case that IIT-JEE is perfect, but it has served the purpose of establishing the IITs as globally acknowledged institutions of engineering excellence. Therefore any admission test to replace it requires careful examination and due diligence. Our objection to the proposed common entrance exam was that all its claimed advantages — that it would reduce student stress and coaching, and improve the higher secondary school system — are fallacious. On the contrary, the exact opposite would happen with coaching extending downwards into higher secondary education and increasing student stress. Admittedly, the country’s science and engineering education system needs to constantly improve, but replacement of IIT-JEE which has served us well, requires careful enquiry and evaluation. Certainly there was no case for it to be replaced with immediate effect,” says Dr. Harish Karnick, an alum of IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Bombay who heads the computer science and engineering faculty at IIT-Kanpur.

With Sibal refusing to review or defer the ministry’s proposal to abolish IIT-JEE and AIEEE for admission into the IITs, NITs and other engineering colleges and conduct the new common entrance examination next year, the IIT-Kanpur senate passed a special resolution on June 8. “The  recent IIT Council proposal on admissions to IITs is academically and methodologically unsound and in violation of the Institutes of Technology Act (1961) and IIT Kanpur Ordinances (Ordinance 3.2 (Admissions)… invoking Ordinance 3.2, the senate resolves that IIT Kanpur will conduct the entrance examination for admissions to its undergraduate programmes in 2013,” said the resolution.

Although the most dramatic reaction to the new common entrance proposal emanated from the IIT-Kanpur senate, the overwhelming majority of the 3,000-strong faculty of India’s showpiece engineering colleges was up in arms against Sibal’s hasty proposal which was steamrollered through the May 28 joint meeting of the councils of the IITs, NITs and IIITs. On June 15, a five-member strong delegation of IIT faculty gathered together under the banner of the All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF), met with prime minister Manmohan Singh in Delhi, demanding that the new common entrance exam be deferred, that the decision of the senates on admission modalities including format of the examination should be final, and that the academic autonomy of the IITs be respected. “We explained each of our points to the prime minister. He told us he would talk to the HRD minister and assured us that the autonomy of the IITs will remain intact,” said A.K. Mittal, joint secretary of AIIITFF, addressing a press conference in Delhi. “We also insisted that any change in the entrance test should be effected only after 2013,” he added.

The apprehensions of IIT faculty members are elaborated by Prof. Sanjeev Sanghi who teaches applied mechanics at IIT-Delhi, and is president of the institute’s faculty forum. “Under the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, the senates of the IITs have been given full powers of control, regulation and maintenance of standards of instruction, education and examination. With the introduction of the proposed common entrance examination, we apprehended that the academic autonomy of the IITs would be diluted because any tests leading to IIT admissions must be wholly owned by the IITs. Under the proposed common entrance exam, the IITs would have been reduced to mere test centres with not much choice in determining the criteria for selection of our students,” says Sanghi.

Quite clearly, HRD minister Sibal’s May 28 announcement of a common entrance exam encompassing the IITs split these showpiece institutes  right down the middle with top managements (councils) and faculty (senates)  divided on the issue. A thick conspiracy of silence surrounds what exactly transpired at the May 28 meeting between the combative minister and leaders of the councils of the country’s top engineering institutes chaired by Sibal. Nobody has yet dared to contradict Sibal’s assertion that all present at the meeting had unanimously concurred with his proposal to abolish IIT-JEE and AIEEE and replace it forthwith with the new common entrance exam.

However, according to an anonymous IIT-Kanpur faculty member quoted in the Business Standard (June 15), prior to convening the May 28 joint councils meeting, Sibal had “asked all the senates of the IITs (older ones) to give their suggestions on JEE 2013 and had said the final decision would be taken after the senates had given their views”. “But the second meet (with senates’ representatives) never took place,” says the anonymous faculty member. Moreover it’s curious that although top management representatives of only four of the 16 IITs were present at the May 28 meeting, Sibal has translated their silence into a unanimous agreement to introduction of JEE 2013 stating that “there was not a single dissent”.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s obvious Sibal characteristically took the short-cut and conveniently assumed that the IIT council representatives present at the joint councils’ meeting had the consent of their senates, which wasn’t the case. Naturally the representatives of the NIT and IIIT councils who constituted the overwhelming majority at the May 28 meeting were in favour of the new common entrance exam because despite their lesser reputations, the new exam would place them on a par with the prestigious IITs. By failing to speak up and allowing themselves to be bamboozled into endorsing the switchover, the IIT representatives at the critical joint councils meeting earned the wrath of their senates, faculties and even alumni and students.

The fallout of the HRD minister’s clumsy attempt to steamroll the populist common entrance exam through the IITs, was a fissure between their councils and senates and faculties, as also between these premier institutes of engineering — which hitherto administered IIT-JEE in consultation and cooperation with each other — inter se. According to informed sources, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kharagpur, and IIT-Roorkee made common cause with IIT-Kanpur which raised the banner of revolt. On the other hand, the IITs in Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) — whose directors and representatives refused interview requests form EducationWorld — were more sympathetic to the HRD ministry’s proposal to switch over to the new entrance exam, although their senates and faculties were less sanguine. Evidently more concerned that they have the most to lose if the institutional reputation of the IITs painstakingly built over the past six decades since the first IIT (Kharagpur) was promoted in 1951, these reputed institutes’ senates and faculties favoured the structure and rationale of the new common entrance examination to be thoroughly and diligently assessed prior to its  implementation.

Although the huge controversy which could well have resulted in a PIL (public interest litigation) writ being filed in the Supreme Court requesting a ruling upon the ambit of the academic autonomy of the IITs under the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961, split the unity of these elite institutes, at another level the revolt of the faculty against HRD ministry meddling was a welcome demonstration of institutional pride by a community with a tradition of genuflecting before government authority. Over the past half century despite constant government interference, the IITs have established a global reputation for graduating world-class professionals who have distinguished themselves in India and abroad. This time even if belatedly, academics if not administrators of these blue-chip institutes, took a stand against reckless implementation of a policy directive which could have diluted brand IIT.

Curiously, despite the unexpected success of IITs in impacting Indian engineering and technology education upon the global academic and business communities — or perhaps because of it — since the dawn of the new millennium, every incumbent of Shastri Bhavan, Delhi has attempted to diminish the autonomy of IITs and/or has   interfered with the tried and tested admissions system of these venerable institutes to win brownie points from the multitudes.

At the turn of the new millennium, the incumbent of  Shastri Bhavan was BJP ideologue Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi who not only infiltrated unsubstantiated hindutva mythology into high school social science textbooks, but also made a spirited attempt to pack the boards of the IITs (and IIMs) with his acolytes and siphon off a substantial proportion of their endowment corpuses into a government-promoted fund titled Bharat Shiksha Kosh. With little resistance emanating from the institutes, their academic and administrative autonomy was providentially saved from government incursion by the general election of 2004 in which the BJP — riding high on the India shining wave — was unexpectedly defeated, and Joshi lost his own seat in the Lok Sabha (see box).

Joshi’s successor in Shastri Bhavan was the late and unlamented staunch socialist and Nehru-Gandhi dynasty loyalist Arjun Singh, who in a bid to boost his prime ministerial ambitions suddenly resurrected the long-forgotten Mandal Commission Report 1980, to impose an additional (i.e in addition to the 22.5 percent reserved for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) 27 percent admissions quota for OBCs (other backward castes) on the IITs and all Central government-funded institutions of higher education. But following a national uproar over the merit quota being drastically reduced to 50 percent, under the guidance of the Supreme Court a compromise formula was adopted under which the merit quota was maintained at 77.5 percent,  but the admission intake of the IITs and IIMs was increased by 27 percent to accommodate OBC students.

Nevertheless the on-ground reality within the IITs in particular, is that the SC, ST and OBC quotas are substantially unfilled because neither the Union nor state governments have bothered to improve teaching-learning standards in government-run schools and pre-university colleges in which reserved quota students tend to complete their higher secondary education. Consequently, with most of them unable to afford test prep classes offered by coaching schools, they are unable to meet even the 10-20 percent lower admission cut-offs stipulated for quota students.

In 2009 when the Congress-led UPA-II government was re-elected to office in New Delhi with an increased majority in the Lok Sabha, legal eagle Kapil Sibal who had served in the UPA-I government as minister of science and technology, was appointed Union HRD minister with high hopes that he would spark the overdue reformation of the country’s moribund education system. But instead of addressing the supply side of the supply-demand equation for superior K-12 and engineering education by offering liberal incentives to foreign and domestic education entrepreneurs and universities to establish green-field campuses in India, Sibal too has fallen into the populist quagmire of tinkering with quotas and administrative systems to meet the pressing demand for admission into high quality private schools and  IITs.

For instance, instead of addressing the root problem of improving teaching-learning standards in the country’s 1.25 million government primary schools, he decreed a 25 percent quota for poor neighbourhood children in private schools under the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. Moreover dangerously, exams have been abolished and promotions made automatic in elementary education (classes I-VIII) under the Act even as nothing has been done to raise secondary and higher secondary school-leaving exam standards. Notwithstanding dumbing down of the school education system, the pro-posed common entrance exam for all Central government-funded engineering colleges — including the IITs — would have given 40 percent weightage to marks secured in the class XII exam conducted by the two major Central (CISCE and CBSE) and 40 state examination boards across the country. Given that class XII board examination assessment standards vary widely, the heavy weightage given to class XII mark sheets alarmed IIT academics the most.

“It’s hardly a national secret that in some states of the Union, cheating, impersonation and corruption in school board examinations is an accepted way of life. The main objection of IIT faculty members was to the heavy weightage proposed to be given to class XII board exams in JEE 2013. It is entirely possible for a large cohort of students who have cheated and bribed their way to obtain high class XII marks to enter coaching schools, and do well in the proposed JEE mains and advanced exams to qualify for IIT admission.

“Moreover the claim that the new entrance exam would have reduced dependence on coaching schools doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, coaching schools would start targeting class XI and XII students. Therefore under the new system it would have become entirely possible for students who cheated in school and pre-university examination boards to get an advantage over students of even CISCE and CBSE boards. To a great extent, the success of the IITs is attributable to our thorough admission screening process which ensures that only the cream of the country’s school leavers enter our institutes. Therefore our major demand was to examine the class XII exam weightage proposal carefully, instead of implementing the proposed common entrance exam in a hurry,” says an IIT-Bombay faculty member, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Most independent education experts agree that some reform of IIT-JEE is necessary and overdue. For one, it has been cracked by the country’s estimated 10,000 coaching schools whose alumni constitute the overwhelming majority of the 9,500 students entering the IITs annually. These schools demand — and get — huge tuition fees which makes heavily subsidised IIT education a monopoly of the middle and upper classes, with students from socio-economically underprivileged households who can’t afford coaching school fees, at a disadvantage —the rationale of admission weightage being given to class XII results.

Moreover since the IITs admit a mere 9,500 students who top its IIT-JEE written by over 500,000 school-leaving students annually, the overwhelming majority of class XII engineering education aspirants are obliged to write other entrance exams such as AIEEE and the CET (common entrance test) of state governments which undoubtedly increases students’ stress. But experts warn that better can be the enemy of good and emphasise that the rigorous IIT-JEE, a sui generis entrance exam devised to suit the peculiar needs of the IITs, has served the institutes well, transforming IIT into a globally respected brand.

Yet it’s pertinent to note that while IIT faculty and indigenous educationists derive pride and glory from the global reputation of brand IIT, knowledgeable academics and educationists abroad aren’t as impressed. In the annual league tables of the world’s best universities and institutes of higher education compiled by the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds, Times Education Supplement and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, India’s much-hyped IITs are way down the pecking order.

For instance, the QS World University Rankings lists IIT-Delhi at 218, IIT-Bombay at 225 and IIT-Madras at 281. The THE World University league table ranks only one Indian institution among its Top 500 — IIT-Bombay (317). On the other hand, the People’s Republic of China has eight universities ranked among QS’ Top 50 and THE’s Top 100.

“Undoubtedly there is a good case for a common entrance exam for all engineering colleges which is the norm in the US and several other countries around the world because it eliminates the practice of students having to write several exams. But in developed countries the common entrance exam is essentially an aptitude test. Colleges have the right to conduct their own tests for those who clear the common entrance exam. Unfortunately, because of heavy subsidisation of higher education and pervasive corruption in Indian society, the discretion of college — including IIT — managements to admit students of their choice has been completely eliminated. There is no doubt that coached-for-exams rather than innovative students are entering the IITs in greater numbers, but IIT-JEE has served the IITs well to transform them into a globally respected brand. There-fore reform of IIT-JEE needs to be very cautious, perhaps by introducing explanatory essay-type questions which would be beyond the influence of coaching schools,” advises Dr. Lalit Kanodia, an alumnus of IIT-Bombay and MIT, Boston and currently chairman of  the Mumbai-based Datamatics Group of companies.

Since the country’s 16 and in particular seven older IITs are far from broken and don’t need much fixing, the need for circumspection while reforming the entrance exam which could radically transform — most likely for the worse —the student mix of these institutes, is also advised by Dr. Ashok Misra, an alum of IIT-Kanpur, Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts, Boston who is thoroughly familiar with the strengths and infirmities of the IITs, having taught in IIT-Delhi for over 20 years (1977-2000) and serving as director of IIT-Bombay (2000-2008).

Currently the Bangalore-based chairman (India) of the Seattle-based Intellectual Ventures, a $5 billion global inventions development fund, Misra is unperturbed by the low ranking of IITs in global league tables which he attributes to “erroneous assumptions and poor support of research by government and industry”. He believes the IITs are a “huge name globally” and that contrary to popular opinion “over half the students of IITs are postgrad students with excellent records of research, especially in incremental inventions”. “For reasons of social equity and to reduce the influence of coaching schools, there is a good case for giving some weightage to class XII academic performance. But  class XII results should be an admission eligibility or screening requirement, rather than being included in the final evaluation,” suggests Misra.

In this connection, it’s pertinent to note that even within the senates and faculties of IITs there’s acknowledgement of need to improve IIT-JEE to make admission into these elite institutes more inclusive and less dependent upon ubiquitous coaching schools, which prepare students for exams but do precious little to stimulate their curiousity or innovation capabilities. Nevertheless they are united in their opposition to reform initiatives which could harm the great reputation — assiduously built over the past 60 years — of these top-class institutes. Hence to their credit, they insisted upon thorough enquiry and debate of the issues involved in switching from IIT-JEE to the proposed common entrance exam. This commendable circumspection was at odds with the all-fired hurry with which Sibal wanted to introduce the common entrance exam from the very next year.

Indeed the massive row that erupted over the IIT entrance exam reform proposal is intimately connected with Sibal’s brusque and abrasive personality and his propensity to bulldoze well-intentioned but hasty — unusual for a hitherto top-ranked successful Supreme Court lawyer — initiatives to reform India’s admittedly obsolescing education system. The minister’s reluctance to thoroughly debate the ministry’s reform initiatives and impatience with details has cost the country dearly. Currently over six Bills of the HRD ministry including the National Council for Higher Education, Foreign Education Providers (Prevention of Commercialisation and Regulation of Entry), National Academic Tribunals, Prohibition of Unfair Practices, among other reform legislation, are stalled in Parliament, with even Congress party members in the standing committee of the HRD ministry finding fault with them.

For instance, as the dust settles after the Supreme Court substantially upheld the RTE Act on April 12, it is becoming increasingly apparent that even this historic legislation piloted through Parliament by Sibal is flawed for reinforcing licence-permit-quota-inspector raj in school education which threatens to wipe out 400,000 private budget schools to whom the urban and rural poor are fleeing in increasing numbers. Moreover, instead of making a determined effort to raise abysmal teaching-learning standards in the country’s 1.26 million government primary-secondaries, the RTE Act is an admission of government defeat inasmuch as it “outsources” the State’s (government) obligation to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the six-14 age group, to private schools (see EW June cover story). And even as other trendy provisions of the RTE Act such as automatic promotion until class VIII, and abolition of exams and their replacement with the CCE (continuous and comprehensive evaluation) system are proving unworkable, Sibal abolished the time-tested IIT-JEE and replaced it with a populist and ill-considered common entrance exam for all Central government-funded engineering and technology colleges.

“The reality is that over the past five decades, IIT-JEE has evolved into a gold standard exam for its fairness, effectiveness and lack of corruption. To get through the IIT-JEE means you become part of an elite through merit, wherever you come from. Far from being abolished, the IIT-JEE needs to be adapted and replicated in other sectors of India’s education system. The common entrance exam proposed by  Kabil Sibal would not only have destroyed a system working perfectly for the IITs, but do little to address the remainder of the educational system. In the end I’m glad he listened to IIT academics, students and alumni and retreated,” says New York-based Anil Malhotra, an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur, U Cal at Berkeley and Harvard Business School, former director of ONGC and hitherto energy advisor to the World Bank.

Although at the time of this issue of EW going to press, full details of the compromise agreement between the HRD minister and the IIT councils are not available, the broad outlines are clear. A new common entrance exam will replace IIT-JEE next year (2013). The exam will be divided into the JEE Main and JEE Advanced. Of the 500,000 or more who write the JEE Main, the top-ranked 150,000 will qualify to write JEE Advanced for admission into the IITs. But only students from within the top 20 percentile in the class XII boards who top JEE Advanced will be called for counseling for admission into the IITs. More pertinently, the JEE Main and JEE Advanced exams will be conducted and administered by the IITs.

It’s a famous victory, in a cause worth fighting for.

With Swati Roy (Delhi)