I’m following the engaging discussion and strong opinions on Abi’s alleged bias in the IIT-JEE.
He has a compelling argument on how the IIT-JEE doesn’t serve the purpose of standardization. Though it’s not clear that it is intended to do that.
Instead, what does JEE do? Does it pose questions at a level at which
our high school boards cover physics, math and chemistry? Hell, no!
Does it have questions that a good student can even attempt to answer
without any specialized coaching? No again.
My personal experience with the JEE has been similar. With a 1057 rank, I was able to get into the Chemical Engineering department at IIT-Kharagpur. However, it took me a full two years of coaching classes covering subject matter completely different from my higher secondary school curriculum.
In the final two months before the exam, I was close to mental fatigue juggling these two disparate syllabi. I went through with the exam but also know a number of close friends who decided that it was not worth the extra effort.
I completely agree with Abi’s closing point,
In its current form, JEE is like a “Prize” exam. It should not be.
Because, a seat at an IIT should not be a “Prize”. Many of us seem to
think that it is, but it should not be. IITs are about education, and
should stay that way. As premier institutions, they should dump the
current format and go for one that does the simple job of standardizing
across India’s many school exam boards.
Comments (2)
Wow, thanks for your very supportive words!
I took JEE coaching classes and dropped out of them because they seemed useless compared to studying at home. In those days, JEE syllabus used to match pretty closely to CBSE’s syllabus. The big difference was JEE’s focus on problem-solving as opposed to theory and learning by rote a la board exams. The key factor is that JEE requires practice at problem-solving. Whether you do it through a coaching class or sitting at home is irrelevant. Coaching classes facilitate this practice - they do not give some secret mantra to their students.
Therefore, this idea of coaching classes being something bad for IIT is total BS in my opinion.
Also to your point about disparate syllabi - India has umpteen numbers of education boards which are a necessity owing to the federated structure of our country and society. It will never be possible to standardize JEE to meet the syllabi of all these boards.
IIT seat’s prize factor has everything to do with demand and supply and little to do with what exact questions or syllabus of JEE.