Professor Emeritus N R Narayana Murthy's remark on the deteriorating quality of students entering IITs has found support from IIT heads.
Speaking on the issue, IIT Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said, "There is a limit to what an instrument like an entrance exam can do. Taking school scores into consideration should allow us to get well-rounded students."
Speaking on the issue, IIT Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi said, "There is a limit to what an instrument like an entrance exam can do. Taking school scores into consideration should allow us to get well-rounded students."
Meanwhile Gautam Baru, IIT-Guwahati director said that most of the aspirants start preparing early for IITs and many of them are not even interested in pursuing engineering in future, "By the time they join the IIT system, they are mentally fatigued. They want to sell soaps, not become engineers. Many of them are not even interested in engineering," he says, an assessment borne out by where they eventually land up. As per the placement records, over 50% graduates join managerial positions in consultancy firms, FMCG companies and the finance sector.
The competition in the entrance of Indian Institute of Technology is fierce. One needs to elbow out at least 30 other IIT hopefuls to get beyond the entry point. And it's this that stokes the coaching industry. Few take the risk of not going through a gruellingly long training.
However, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal disagrees from Murthy.
"I don't believe or adhere to what Narayana Murthy has said. We are capable of producing world class institutions like IITs and IIMs and we need to have more of these institutions to reach almost every student capable and aspiring to get into these institutes," said the minister.This year, of the 13,195 who qualified for the IITs, two thirds said they took professional help to prepare for the entrance - the Joint Entrance Exam.
Analysis of JEE 2011 shows that of the 4.68 lakh candidates who appeared, 86,719 (18.5%) had completed schooling in an Indian village. Another 1.35 lakh (28.9%) schooled in towns and 2.46 lakh (52.55%) in cities. The success rate was the lowest for those who schooled in villages (9.84%); 25.12% of those from towns and 65.03% from cities made it to the IITs. Guwahati zone showed the largest percentage of candidates with schooling in villages while the Delhi zone had the largest success percentage from cities.
In JEE 2010, among the qualified candidates 57.93% were from CBSE, 36% from state boards and 5.54% from ICSE.
[Source: Times of India]
