The Union HRD Ministry has announced that starting from 2013, IITJEE and AIEEE, the major engineering entrance exams in India, will be merged into a new exam, the Indian Science Engineering Eligibility Test (ISEET). As expected, this announcement has met with jeers and angst from the IIT community, who have christened it the I-SHIT!
But I see no reason to deride the exam before it even starts. It's focus on logical reasoning and comprehension is tuned to International standards that measure learning through understanding a problem rather than knowing how to solve it mechanically. In a previous article, I demonstrated how much of the criticism is actually in deference to the stardom that qualifying JEE gets you rather than a genuine interest in getting good people into the IITs. I may add that much of the cheering is actually out of vengeance from those who did not qualify JEE.
But these minor arguments are not to be taken seriously. The major thrust should be to improve school education and flush out these coaching institutes that have become the bane of the education system. In a panel discussion with faculty three years back, we had concluded that these institutes are not the proper means to learn but are merely geared to train well-off kids to pass a single exam, following which they go back to being mediocre (and give up engineering entirely after that).
Already, a number of ISEET coaching centres have come up across India. Even before the exact pattern of the exam was revealed, institutes claimed to have become 'premiere' centres of coaching for ISEET! This is a disturbing trend, one that needs to be nipped in the bud by ensuring that nothing but good school education and a logical mind can get you through the exam. Rote learning, unending prep and other short-term means to get through an exam need to be discouraged and it is the responsibility of CBSE - which will conduct ISEET - to steer the exam in such a direction.
As for the quality of the exam itself, I see no reason to believe why it would be poor. Just because it's not JEE it does not have to be mediocre. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating - lets wait for 2013 to see the real face of ISEET. You never know - it could be just what the doctor prescribed to make sure IITians become engineers and not leave the engineering field altogether.
But I see no reason to deride the exam before it even starts. It's focus on logical reasoning and comprehension is tuned to International standards that measure learning through understanding a problem rather than knowing how to solve it mechanically. In a previous article, I demonstrated how much of the criticism is actually in deference to the stardom that qualifying JEE gets you rather than a genuine interest in getting good people into the IITs. I may add that much of the cheering is actually out of vengeance from those who did not qualify JEE.
But these minor arguments are not to be taken seriously. The major thrust should be to improve school education and flush out these coaching institutes that have become the bane of the education system. In a panel discussion with faculty three years back, we had concluded that these institutes are not the proper means to learn but are merely geared to train well-off kids to pass a single exam, following which they go back to being mediocre (and give up engineering entirely after that).
Already, a number of ISEET coaching centres have come up across India. Even before the exact pattern of the exam was revealed, institutes claimed to have become 'premiere' centres of coaching for ISEET! This is a disturbing trend, one that needs to be nipped in the bud by ensuring that nothing but good school education and a logical mind can get you through the exam. Rote learning, unending prep and other short-term means to get through an exam need to be discouraged and it is the responsibility of CBSE - which will conduct ISEET - to steer the exam in such a direction.
As for the quality of the exam itself, I see no reason to believe why it would be poor. Just because it's not JEE it does not have to be mediocre. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating - lets wait for 2013 to see the real face of ISEET. You never know - it could be just what the doctor prescribed to make sure IITians become engineers and not leave the engineering field altogether.
5 comments:
Nice article, the first article on the web about ISEET that is not merely meant to attract traffic :D hope you will post updated info about ISEET.
I appreciate the fact that students won't have to mug-up the concepts of PCM which have a little or no use in most of the engineering branches(I'm in CS and I assure you that apart from elementary mathematics, my JEE knowledge has not been of any use in my department), but I think what matters is the fact that who is conducting ISEET. I had no idea about it, but learned from your blog that CBSE is doing it. Now THAT is where the problem lies.
I really wouldn't mind if IITs were conducting the exam, but CBSE! :(
I agree fully with you Piyush. The CBSE conducting the ISEET is surely a matter of concern as it might lend an undue advantage to students of CBSE, leaving behind students of other boards.!
in my several interactions with Engineering aspirants they term it a good step.
Nitin
iseet@iseet.co.in
Please read this:
http://www.iitk.ac.in/gymkhana/JEE_changes/Minutes%20of%20the%202011-12-1st%20%28Special%29%20Meeting.pdf
Its an official script, and read it.
"Give It a try" is not really worth if we are asked to eat poop (i-shit) 2013.
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