New exam to replace JEE this October for admissions to engg

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

Ex-IITian comes out with innovative school learning startup

Two ex-IITians have come up with a unique open- school communication and social learning platform that allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively on mobile phones. Ritesh Singh and Akshat Goel wanted to provide innovative solutions for effective knowledge transfer in our ecosystem. Hence, they chose the name ‘Eckovation’ for their startup, a portmanteau of ecosystem, knowledge and innovation.

Eckovation allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively while safeguarding privacy. (Courtesy/Yo Success)

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Founded in March 2014, the app was finally launched this June after more than a yearlong market research and study. CEO Singh, who hails from tier-III town Chapra in 

Founded in March 2014, the app was finally launched this June after more than a yearlong market research and study. CEO Singh, who hails from tier-III town Chapra in Bihar, said he had language issues from the beginning and these never left him.

“So, I was always thinking about solutions that could help people just like me, who do not get access to quality education early in their life. I always wanted to make quality education accessible even in places where only minimal infrastructure exists. That’s how Eckovation came into being,” he told PTI.

From conceptualising to its practical usage, there were many challenges. “We first explored MOOCs (massive open online courses) but they were cumbersome and required a lot of self-discipline on the users’ part. Next, we thought about providing data analytics through an ERP system that monitors a child’s performance and equips teachers and parents with sufficient data to improve a child’s performance by finding gaps, weaknesses and strengths,” he said..

Singh says the major challenge they faced was dependence of teachers on WhatsApp. “Although teachers wanted students to join their classroom learning group, they were wary of their phone numbers falling in the hands of strangers. At the same time, teachers had to block students and parents because sometimes they did not want them to disturb them beyond office hours.”

Though the dependence on WhatsApp was a challenge but its limitations were also an opportunity for Singh and Goel. “For instance - size limit of 100 members in a group, privacy concerns, no control over conversation for teachers, so on and so forth. All of this has been taken care of in Eckovation app plus a lot more features are there to ensure education- focused communication. We are also introducing document transfer on the app. The app, by design, is very light and uses minimal Internet on your phone,” says Singh.

Eckovation allows teachers, parents and students to interact freely and effectively while safeguarding privacy. Except the teacher, it does not allow anyone to see anyone else’s mobile number in the group. “Moreover, we also observed that teachers are not very comfortable in being active 24x7 on the app and rightly so. So they can easily change the mode of the app from two-way to one way thereby disallowing anyone else but themselves from posting on the group. It ensures that teachers only interact when they want to and have the time to do so.”

Also, Eckovation allows open learning by enabling teachers who are willing to share their group code outside of classrooms. “There are 400 such teachers active on the platform. Through this, students who may not have access to quality teachers can take lessons and clarify doubts from accomplished and experienced teachers who are willing to help in their free time.” The ‘Open School Programme’ plans to bring 1 billion users on the platform by 2020.

Source: Hindustan Times