The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) should give more weightage to the Class 12 examination marks for admission to the undergraduate courses, union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday. Sibal stressed that the IIT admission procedures 'should give more weightage to Class 12 exam marks' as well as consider raising the existing 60 % cut-off percentage for students to appear in the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE). The minister made the comments while chairing a meeting of the IIT Council in Delhi.
Sibal proposed a new system under which only high-scoring Class 12 students will be allowed to sit for the entrance exams to professional courses and the cut-off percentage for being eligible to write these exams would be 80-85 % instead of the current 60 %. At the IIT Council meeting, the minister said he also wanted to get rid of professional coaching for medical and engineering exams. However, coaching centres like Career Launcher, which trains students to face the competitive exam, said that doing away with the coaching centres or increasing weightage for the Class 12 exam marks was not the real solution. Sibal has also asked for setting up a five-member committee to make the IITs more competitive. Another committee has been constituted to look into the IIT curriculum.
