NEW DELHI:
Learning by rote or attending coaching classes will no longer guarantee
admission to popular and premier engineering institutions in the country.
The Union
human resource development (HRD) ministry will soon set up a National Authority
for Testing (NAT) to conduct a new entrance examination — starting this October
— that will replace the two-tier joint entrance examination (JEE) main and
advanced tests for entry into engineering colleges.
The JEE is a
national common entrance examination conducted to provide admissions to several
engineering courses.
The focus now
will be to standardise the test so that it can’t be cracked by coaching
institutes or “teaching shops” and learning by rote — which bring down the
standard because such practices fail to teach analytical and logical skills
needed for scientific research. The new system will test the logical and
analytical abilities of students rather than knowledge on subjects. The first
such test from October will screen students aspiring for admission to the 2017
session, sources said.
Under
the new system, students will be able to write the test online four times a
year. About 4,00,000 students will then be shortlisted for the joint entrance
examination (JEE), which will follow the same pattern of the current advanced
test and examine their knowledge of physics, chemistry and mathematics.
The
score will be used f or admission to IITs and NITs.
The NAT will be
constituted after approval from the Union cabinet and registered as an
independent society under the HRD ministry.
The concept
was given inprinciple approval by the ministry at a meeting last week, where
contours of the authority were discussed.
“The NAT is a
general aptitude score like SAT and will be used for JEE. The National
Authority for Testing will be mandated to design and administer world-class
aptitude tests to judge innovative abilities, l o gical t hinking, problem
solving and critical thinking of students,” said a senior official.
Officials said
the NAT would be nurtured to evolve as a globally-acclaimed organisation for
educational and psychological tests with the ability to design exams for people
from diverse cultural, linguistic and social backgrounds.
The NAT is
likely to have a technical wing too along with wings for tests, IT,
administrative and finance. “The technical wing will have educationi sts and
psychometricians while the test wing will comprise administrators specialising
in conducting tests,” an official said.
The
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that the offline JEE
main exam for 2016 will be held on April 3 while the online test is scheduled
for April 9 and 10.
Source: Hindustan Times dated 11 January 2016
