BHUBANESWAR: The poor performance of Odisha students in the JEE Main examination this year has startled the State Government, which is trying to give a serious push to technical education.
With just about 6.95 per cent candidates who had appeared for the JEE Main qualifying for the JEE Advanced, the Employment and Technical Education and Training department has sought a post-mortem of the issue.
At least 46,096 candidates had appeared for the JEE Main Examination 2014, but just 3,202 __ barely about 6.95 per cent __ qualified for JEE Advance Examination, which was conducted on Sunday. The national average stands at 12.04 per cent, which means Odisha students have fared below the all-India rate.
JEE Advanced is the qualifying test for all the IITs of the country, whereas JEE Main is the entrance to be eligible for engineering colleges __ government as well as private.
Of the 31,337 boys who sat for the JEE Main, just about 7.85 per cent made the cut for the JEE Advanced, whereas the success rate of girls is even lower at 5.03 per cent. As many as 14,759 girls had appeared for JEE Main 2014. The national average for boys and girls stands at 13.24 per cent and 8.63 per cent respectively.
Only the top 1.5 lakh rank holders in JEE Main qualify for JEE Advanced which says a lot about the performance of Odisha students, whose number is 3,202. i.e a mere 2.134 per cent of the entire pool.
A further break-up of the students on the basis of their Boards they belonged to revealed that those who studied under CBSE and ICSE fared better than students coming under the Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE), the State-run Board.
Of the 46,096 candidates, as many as 8,758 were from CBSE and 1,364 (15.57 per cent) qualified for the JEE Advanced. Similarly, of the 1,056 students from ICSE who appeared the JEE Main, as many as 130 (12.31 per cent) made it to the next level. As against that, a whopping 35,562 students passing out from CHSE appeared for JEE Main, but just 1,688 __ a measly 4.7 per cent __ managed to qualify for JEE Advanced.
Commissioner-cum-Secretary of ETET Department C S Kumar, who took note of the poor results by the Odisha students, has suggested that a meeting on the issue be convened at the highest level.
“It appears from the data that the performance of students belonging to CHSE requires a lot of improvement.
As there are a large number of national level technical institutions, engineering colleges, ITIs and polytechnics in the State, it is important that the teaching and learning should improve at Plus-Two and high school levels so that a large number of students from the State come out successfully in this examination,” he stated in a letter addressed to the Chief Secretary. Interestingly, students of other States have fared much better as compared to Odisha. In Andhra Pradesh, the qualification rate is 18.64 per cent.
In Jharkhand, it is 15.14 per cent, whereas in Chhattisgarh, it is 9.49 per cent.