JEE rules changed: Class 12 results to count for first time

The joint council of the Indian Institutes of Technology ( IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) have decided to change the procedure for selecting candidates for engineering colleges from 2013.Under the proposed new format for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), students will be selected both on the basis of their entrance test as well as their class 12 board examination results.[caption id="attachment_323710" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="PTI"][/caption]The Education Ministry proposes to implement the new format from 2013 onwards, a ranking list will be prepared based on Class XII results and the main test.For admission to all the centrally funded institutes, there would be 40 percentage weightage for performance in Class XII (after normalisation of marks), 30 percent weightage to performance in main and 30 percent in the advanced test.In case of IITs, there would be a filtering process involved. The board results and the main test will be given 50 percent weightage each. Only the top 50,000 students will be selected for the advance test after taking into account theirperformance in the board results and the main result.It was also decided, that a single entrance examination test will be held for admission into central government’s engineering institutes such as IITs, NIT and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) from the next year.But students are not quite happy with the new procedure. In an interview to NDTV, an IIT aspirant said, "This is absolutely wrong. How can you select IIT students on the basis of Board results? The pattern and level of Board exams is entirely different."HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said, "IIT, NIT and IIIT council decide to have joint entrance test for engineering colleges. IIT had resisted to have a joint test with other institutions. Which is why a two tier system has been evolved." Ahead of today's meet between IIT's and NIT's in which the decision was taken,  Sibal on Sunday met the IIT faculty federation and is understood to have sought to resolve differences arising out of the government's move to hold a single entrance test for undergraduate technical courses."The merit only in advanced examination will be considered for admission" to the IITs, Sibal said.  At the same time, he added, the IIT council has agreed to move to the other system by 2015Most of the IIT senates and faculty federation are opposing admission to the undergraduate engineering programmes under the new format which will replace IIT-JEE and AIEEE.The IIT council had met on 12 May during which it is believed to have insisted that the proposed single entrance test may be used as the screening test for admissions to the undergraduate program.