The IIT Joint Council’s plan to bring together the admissions to IITs, NITs and other engineering colleges in the state of Tamil Nadu under a Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) may not see the light of the day for some time to come. The Tamil Nadu (TN) State Government continues to disagree with the plan to implement a common entrance exam for all engineering colleges in the state citing different grounds.

A former Commissioner of Technical Education reasoned that this disagreement is because the state board syllabus imparts exam-oriented learning, as opposed to the analytical and logical knowledge-based learning required by the national level exams like JEE and other common entrance tests.

And another reason for the hesitation to adapt the JEE is the parents’ reluctance to send their children to other states for higher education. They seem to prefer the deemed universities or self-financing colleges instead of the reputed national institutions in order to keep their children in their home state. It should be noted that the TN state government has already written off the existing entrance exam in an effort to encourage the rural students who aspire to be engineers.

On another note, the central government has deviated from the current plan and have decided to consider the class XII marks as one of the deciding criteria for the common entrance test or JEE. The students aspiring to get into IITs and NITs have so long been ignoring the school education but the consideration of class XII marks for the admissions will definitely change this scenario.

Furthermore, an IIT-M faculty revealed that the proposed fee hike for the IITs has not deterred the students, as only 25% of them pay the entire fee amount. The rest of the students have subsidized tuition fees and are also accessing other options such educational loans and ‘pay back after employment’ scheme proposed by the government.