Chairman of Prime Minister's Scientific Advisory Council C.N.R. Rao at a recent CII meet:
"The concept of examination has killed the spirit of innovation among students. Every year, IITs conduct entrance examination and students are exhausted by the time they successfully complete them. They tend to lead a retired life for the next four years (course duration). Where is the scope for innovation? Examinations should only be incidental," Rao, who is also chairman of IITs, said.
Read the last few words in the quote again: "[he] is also chairman of IITs." Let's see if he will carry his message to the IITs as well.
Here's another report on the same event emphasizing a different part of Prof. Rao's speech where he asks industrialists to set up private universities.
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D. Balasubramanian, ex-Director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Director of Research at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, in his fortnightly column in the Hindu:
... [P]eople have begun asking: what do the JEE and other exams achieve? Are they necessary?
Granted, the institutions wish to have a means of filtering and choosing 5,000 from over 2,00,000, and a common entrance exam is the time-tested method. But over the years, the system has been derailed and become a cash-cow for cram schools.
The JEE itself had, until recently, not changed in its pattern; the cram schools have become experts in recognising the pattern and training their students in this `pattern recognition' and answer the exam at speed.
2 Comments:
I think you have developed an allergy for many things that go with the name IIT. Please take a look at how balanced your blogs are when it comes to the word IIT.
It is easy to point at, raise issues and talk about problems. It is difficult to take time off to actually contribute to a solution. Ask the current and previous JEE chairmen and their teams what they have to say in this regard. After all, they are the ones who work hard to make sure the exam is conducted as per procedures every year.
The two distinguished persons mentioned in this blog are (at least now) not associated with undergraduate teaching. If they know that students are morphing into zombies by the time they clear JEE, what are they doing to keep the motivation of IIT faculty up even when forced to teach a bunch of zombies?
Dr. Balasubramanian says "Granted, the institutions wish to have a means of filtering and choosing 5,000 from over 2,00,000, and a common entrance exam is the time-tested method. But over the years, the system has been derailed and become a cash-cow for cram schools."
Over the years, the system has not derailed. The number of people who take up JEE has gone up 3 times in last few years whereas the seats only marginally. That is the source of competition which let to people seeking ways to break out of the rat race. At least the ways they chose are hard work at training schools and not any illegal means. Compare it with olympics where training often involved use of (legal or illegal) drugs. Kota was not on JEE map last decade. Its the numbers man, not the exam.
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