IF THE point is to get some of the best young brains in the country to crack the IITs' joint entrance examination, the human resources development minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, had the right idea when he thought that a prospective IIT student's school-leaving grades should also be taken into account, and that they had better be good, not just a bare first division that comes with 60 per cent, which is commonplace at least in the CBSE system. The minister's wish was expressed to the media after a meeting of the IIT council on Monday, and is technically not yet an official proposal.
However, the meaning is reasonably clear. We may expect changes not only in the JEE syllabus and style, but also eligibility benchmarks. It is important that the authorities are not fixated only with school-leaving percentages. Perhaps the scores of the last two years in school should be given weightage alongside JEE results.
Most kids who clear the JEE are trained at various coaching institutions which rely on the traditional method of cramming, and intensive practice along pre-set lines. A student's creativity is not really assessed. Without this the ability to engage in frontier research -- which is apparently high on the list of Mr Sibal's priorities -- is affected. High grades are not everything, and cramshops insist only on this. Hopefully, a longer scrutiny of a scholar's school record will factor in creativity and problem-solving skills. It is also necessary that schoolchildren throughout India take the same school-leaving exam for them to be judged fairly for a common objective. To bring out the best in a student, the school curriculum too needs to be fashioned in a way that does away with rote learning. If the HRD minister can't crack these elements of the problem, he is unlikely to help prepare a national pool of talented young men and women, with an aptitude for science and technology, who can do dream work comparable with the best in the world. Of course, higher school-leaving grade requirements than now will help dig deeper into the available resource base.
However, the caveat proffered by private institutions in Patna and elsewhere, which focus on disadvantaged rural students and still produce a very large number of IIT entrants each year, must also be taken on board. Their view is that poor students typically go to schools where facilities are inadequate and teachers don't always show up. As such, the coaching institutions in question play an important shaping role, for most of their wards come out of school with bare 60 percent -- the existing base JEE criterion -- and are unlikely to greatly improve on this, the way things are. The argument brings up an important social factor that cannot be disregarded. Perhaps a way can be found to make coaching shops an ally by making them conform to certain standards by the IIT Council, besides raising JEE eligibility requirements above 60 per cent.
Many recent decisions of the HRD minister underline his concern with excellence in the field of higher education. This is crucial if our universities are to be in step with explorations in knowledge-creation. However, high-level teaching and research institutions must not only be synergised, they should rest firmly on the foundation of a sound school system in all states to which access is available regardless of social status.