Being Tough

At 19, one is old enough for many things. One is old enough to elect members to Parliament and, as Michael Atherton now knows, old enough to legally drive a motorcycle. Then why one is not good enough o take the heat to write an exam, supposedly the mother of all exams, (ok atleast in India)

I am so much agitated by the report in Times front page (sorry if u r addicted to online version) about the exam of the IITJEE being tougher than ever from this year. I sensed some good in it and continued reading only to get that limited scope can made a person so crippled minded only to associate the toughness of the exam with the ratio of successful participants to all who appeared.

If I see the exams around me in last one decade, NTSE had 14,000 odd high school students appearing from Uttar Pradesh(that time including Uttaranchal)in two rounds of exams and one interview and the final list had only 76 odd guys selected. SCRA 2000 had around 80,000 students competing for mere 9 seats. Then University of Roorkee had 70,000 students for 180 general seats. Even the recently conducted CAT2005 had 150,000 odd pop for 240 seats in iima. All these exams are far more than projected ratio in IITJEE this year but the fact remain simple, terse but conclusive that JEE was the toughest of all I appeared in so far.

What makes JEE the tough exam in not the number associated that 4000 out of 300,000 will be getting through but the very nature to discover the problem solving skills involved. “ it should be objective in nature”, “ we will make sure that questions are easy this time’, “ there should not be extra burden on children” and many more popular orations that we have heard by senior ministers in UPA government. I still think the thing that make us different( sorry if I seem lil arrogant but ) is the fact that our application of fundamentals of engineering is more profound and dexterous and this lead to a confident and optimal solutions and these application and problem solving habits, I still owed to my JEE days. The very first week after admission and every other week after that only affirmed the belief that JEE prepared us for the heat. “you have won the battle but the war is just begun”. Ranked 3rd among the undergraduate courses in the world again put stress on the JEE system. We are not having the world class labs in IITs, we are not having that big research funding and infrastructures but still we are 3rd rank holder. Giving full credit to professors for it is again not correct because it they were the sole reason then why this result doesn’t reflect that way at graduate study level.

I still remember that some of our senior boasted all time that they have cleared JEE twice in a year(late 90s leak) so they are twice capable. If this trend of deteriorating the quality of this astute exam continues, I could be found after few years stating that we wrote the Real JEE.
But media will not listen.. One day back Indiatimes article mentioned that IITs and IIms found a way to tackle the new reservations policies of UPA government. Minority appeasement at its best. When my friend in his iim interview put it as the biggest problem for India, I didn’t realize the gravity. How they will ensure the same quality of education after increase in the strength, no body in HRD ministry have any clue but everyone is commenting.

The the plan of making new IIT campus in india. I know the person who is the head of the committee to suggest the government of its plan of action, very well. We discussed a lot on it as many names are put forward like anna university, osmania, JNTU, many Nits names are proposed. But the motives all the time remain plainly political. We have the example of Roorkee that is made IITR and the general theory of “funding alone can make miracle” busted. No significant changes are observed. While on the other hand, IIT Guwahati put a apt example of sincere efforts. A Institute is known for its mission and vision and changing names and giving more superficial fund can not bring about the changes. As in NITs, typically 10-15 % of faculty is having a doctoral degree( which is again earned in many cases in QIPs at IITs), do we have a mantle enough to dictate the terms that defines typical faculty of IIT Kanpur(One PhD and 3 year of work ex minimum), and the stringent requirements so that every year aero dept put simply NFS(none found suitable) after faculty search over years. Changing names and giving extra funds if simply can not change faculty, why expect then output.

All this will continue. Indiatimes editor will keep on refusing the honest comments on their articles as they acclaim that they cater to average human emotions. But I am mentioning again that 19 year is a big age for a person to identify the truth behind every speak however political it may be.

Hail Raina ( he is also 19)