Sibal pins hope on IIT Council meet

Says CET Will Help Put End to Capitation Fee
Despite IIT Delhi and Kanpur rejecting the proposed common entrance test and declaring their own exam for next year, HRD minister Kapil Sibal is hoping for a resolution in the IIT Council’s June 27 meeting. “Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana have agreed to bring all their state-run engineering colleges under the umbrella of CET. So, we hope the IIT Council would take into account the concern of the students,” Sibal told TOI. The main test and the advanced question papers would be framed by the IITs, so there was no question of compromising the identity of the institutes, he said.

 The proposed CET for admissions to engineering courses to centrally funded institutions will give a minimum 40% weightage to performance of a Class XII student. For admissions to NITs and IIITs, h/his class XII marks and performance in the main test would be taken into account. 
    For admission to IITs, the performance in the advanced test would be taken into account in addition to the combined grade in academics and main test. Given the variation of marking system in different school examination boards, the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) has devised an equalization formula that would deny advantage to students, who score heavily in Class XII examination under liberal boards. 
    The CET’s aim is to reduce the number of examinations a student has totake for fulfilling h/his dream to become an engineer, Sibal said. “The ultimate goal is to make the CET the only entrance examination for the engineering colleges in the entire country. This would help eliminate capitation fee as all colleges would draw students from a single merit list,” the HRD minister said. 
    “Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana have agreed to bring all their state-run engineering colleges under the umbrella of CET. So, we hope the IIT Council in its June 27 meeting would take into account the concern of the students and comes to an appropriate decision in the light of recent developments,” he told TOI. 
    The main test as well as the advanced test question papers would be framed by the IITs, so there was no question of compromising the unique identity of the premier engineering institutes, Sibal said.
    The ultimate goal is to make the CET the only entrance exam for engineering colleges. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Haryana have agreed to bring all state-run engineering colleges under the umbrella of CET