Why the IITs will suffer because of the new entrance procedure and what should be done.

A lot of noise has been generated in recent times about the quality of students coming into the IITs and also of those passing out of them. And noise is what I would like to describe it as. There is an old adage which says "if it ain't broke, why fix it." This is exactly what has been done to the process of admission to the IITs. No one had any complaints about the quality of students entering the IITs back in the 80s and 90s. Then the fiddling started and changes were introduced because of vested interests. The first major change was the discarding of an English language qualifying exam in the late 1980s. I was a part of the IIT system back then as a student. There was an agitation by a PG student to start the JEE in multiple Indian languages. As a result the English language qualifying exam became the first casualty. That was the first nail in the coffin for the JEE system. A lot of students started coming into the IITs with a poor background in English language and found life tough in the IITs, where English was, and still remains the medium of instruction. The institutes tried to rectify the problem by providing remedial English language classes to those students, but it was always a case of too little too late. In place of providing education to the masses in English medium, the slight tweaking of the JEE system was considered more expedient. Steps like this and many more that followed have created the problems which the IITs are now grappling with.
The next change was a little more subtle. in the mid 1990s, the standard of the IIT-JEE papers started declining. I do not know if this was a policy matter or the change just took place because of random factors but it did happen. The process continued further and the JEE became a complete multiple choice format examination in which the students were rewarded for arriving at the correct answer and there was no consideration for the process used to arrive at the answer. Whatever is recognized and rewarded gets done. The students started picking up the formulaic processes of problem solving and the coaching classes obliged by providing the students with whatever the IIT-JEE demanded. Coaching factories in Kota and Andhra Pradesh started coaching students in the formulaic approach. Though I still believe that, even with this approach, only the brightest kids are getting selected. The real problem is burnout and fatigue that results from excessive coaching. I have heard horror stories about residential coaching factories in Andhra Pradesh where students start studying at six am in the morning and continue studying till its almost midnight. I am very certain that this approach leads to burnout alone and not selection in the JEE. Since these kids do not study anything other than physics, chemistry and mathematics, they have very little idea about the world around them. They have stunted personalities and hence even if they make it to the IITs, a career of any great consequence does not follow.
What is the solution to this problem? In the long term, the quality of our schools needs desperate improvement. There are very few teachers in our school system who teach with passion. Since the profession is not one that pays well, quality personnel are not attracted to it. As the old adage goes, "throw peanuts and you get monkeys, throw money and you get men. " Teaching must be brought on par with engineering, medicine and management in terms of pay packets so as to attract the best talents to this profession. In the long term this has to be done to improve the standard of teaching in our schools. Till then the complete dependence on coaching classes will continue.
In my opinion, coaching classes, could have a healthy role to play. Our heavily burdened education system will never be able to cater to the needs of either the weak or the gifted. At present our schools do not cater to the needs of anyone who has gone past class X. The teachers are just not there. What is happening now is, that coaching classes are acting as a replacement for the dysfunctional school system. This situation will not change till the school system is completely overhauled. Presently, the schools run by the government, do not function and most of the private ones are run by bootleggers, mithaiwaalas, sariwaalas or worse, by the politicians. Major changes are required at the policy level allowing large corporates to run schools as profit centers. At present schools are not permitted to make profits and as a result only those who are willing to use devious methods of making money are setting up schools. The result is there for everyone to see. In an ideal scenario, I would like to see a robust school system supported by coaching classes. The schools must take care of general needs while coaching classes take care of specific needs.
The IITs on the other hand need to reform their JEE system as well. The JEE exam must test the student's analytical ability, but it must be made extremely unpredictable in format so as to negate the formulaic approach of the coaching factories. The test must have questions that test the analytical skills in the context of physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The questions must be of non numerical nature and must require the exercise of abstract logic to arrive at the correct option/options. This will mean that the coaching classes will be forced to teach the subject in a genuine manner. In addition to this a general aptitude test which tests the verbal and non verbal reasoning skills must be introduced and must be conducted in English language only. This will ensure that the students join the IITs, fully equipped. The changes being proposed by the HRD ministry/IIT council at present are likely to make matters worse. The Ramaswamy committee has recommended a system where the board exam performance of the student along with the general aptitude test will be used to form a merit list to admit students in all engineering entrance institutions. This is a recipe for disaster. At least the present IIT JEE system has proved to be free of corruption and tests the depth of understanding of the subjects. There are several different boards throughout the country with widely different curricula. The testing methodology does not test the understanding of the subjects but only the ability of the student to narrate the concepts. There is widespread corruption in the process. There is mass copying, negligent marking of answer sheets and doling out of easy marks in the practical exams to name a few. If the performance in this system is to become a basis for entry into the IITs, then God alone can help them. The biggest rote learners will have the best chance of selection. Even though a SAT like test will also be conducted, it will not test the preparedness of the students for a B.Tech course at IIT. Unlike the US, where they have a robust school system, we cannot rely on the schooling records of a student and make it a criteria for admission to the IIT. Mr Sibbal and Mr Ramaswamy have got it totally wrong. In their zeal for reducing the influence of coaching classes they are destroying whatever little credibility the IITs have as of now. It's all akin to a farmer burning his fields for the fear of pilferage.
Even the objective of reducing the influence of coaching classes is unlikely to be achieved because now the coaching will start happening for the board exams and for the aptitude test. Parents will always do what they can to give their kids a competitive advantage. At present only above average kids go for coaching for IIT-JEE. After the introduction of the new proposals every parent will assume that a child has a chance an therefore avail coaching. Since only class XII marks will count, everyone will start cramming class XII curriculum from class IX onwards at the modified version of the coaching factories which will reappear in the guise of schools. The only ones laughing all the way to the bank will be the coaching classes whose influence Mr Sibbal so desperately wants to cut down. The foundational education of the students will suffer because they will be focused only on class XII board results. Even now schools neglect class XI syllabus because performance in class XI does not show up in the records of their students and even more importantly their own.
The HRD ministry and the IIT council need to have a long and hard look at the proposed changes and then go for their implementation. The JEE system needs overhauling, But the recently proposed changes are likely to lead to an unmitigated disaster by lowering the entry bar for the IITs. Not only this, these changes will further degrade the already pathetic school system and lead to widespread corruption. By doing away with the board exams Mr Sibbal has already damaged the education system. These recently proposed changes in the JEE process will just prove to be another Tuglaqian fiasco, the way the CCE process introduced by the CBSE has been.
Instead of taking on the coaching classes the concerned authorities will do well to take them along by suitably modifying the JEE. This can easily be achieved by changing the nature of questions asked in the JEE. Instead of asking questions that test problem solving skills we must introduce a JEE in an unpredictable format which tests analytical reasoning along with the understanding of the science subjects. I just hope that the people making these decisions wake up to reality before its too late.