The suicide of a 14-year-old boy attending school and undergoing coaching classes in Kota, Rajasthan, has shocked many. It is reported that he was the 30th victim of coaching centres in this small town this year, which is better known for its entrance coaching hell holes. This is a wakeup call for not just parents who aspire their wards to secure admission into IITs and other premier institutions, but also for the nation as the higher education system in India has not evolved any concrete methods over the years for identifying creme de la creme among its youth.
Age 14 or 15 is not when one really knows one’s talents and aptitudes, and often parents determine what their wards have to accomplish in their lives. It’s peer and parental pressure to succeed that has driven many to take the extreme step in their blossoming age and this is what we are witnessing in Kota.
Admission of their ward to an IIT is a dream of many parents. Since the number of seats in IITs are limited to about 10,000, there is stiff competition in securing it. Only around 1 per cent of the 1.5 million aspirants finally make it.
The criteria of admission to IITs have changed over the years. Till 2012, there was only one entrance examination, the IIT-JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) that one had to qualify. Since then, multiple filters have been introduced to identify top talent. Now, there is JEE (Advanced) in addition to JEE (Main). Also, 40 per cent weightage is given to Class XII marks, forcing aspirants to do well in board exams too—which translates to triple pressure on them.
There are reports that the JEE in 2017 could have a new avatar in the form of an aptitude test in the place of JEE (Main). The Ashok Misra committee has proposed this to evaluate the ‘scientific mettle and innovative thinking’ of the aspirants with a hope to bring down the influence of coaching centres.
Another proposal is of introducing a written exam after the JEE (Advanced) to determine the ‘actual capabilities and subject-wise knowledge of aspirants’. If introduced, cracking the exams will become more difficult. Such untested, half-baked proposals are nothing short of experimenting with the lives of the youth in this country. The introduction of JEE (Advanced) as well as factoring the Class XII marks were intended to stem the influence of coaching centres, but it’s business as usual for them.
If we are genuinely interested in curtailing coaching centres and de-stressing students, we should reduce the weightage given to these entrance tests. Bring this down to, say, 25 per cent from the present 60 per cent and increase the weightage of Class XII marks to 75 per cent. It will also give a boost to the importance of school education.
The possibility of a ‘subject of aptitude’ as optional or elective in Class XII can be thought of to determine the aptitude of students interested in pursuing engineering, science or medicine. The 25 per cent weightage in the entrance exam shall be on verbal, quantitative and reasoning skills since the student has already been examined for his or her ability in subjects of interest.
Mark Twain said ‘a cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with college education’. The Indian higher education system has been turning cabbages into cauliflowers with its mindless policies of experimenting with the youth. It is time we realised our folly.
drjk.sct@gmail.com
Jayakrishnan is a professor at IIT Madras and former VC of Kerala University