The Indian Institute of Technology Joint Admission Board on Saturday ratified the 60 percent cut-offs in Plus II for appearing in the Joint Entrance Examinations and exempted those appearing in the exam in 2006 from the reforms.
The eligible students can appear in 2006 JEE, irrespective of the number of attempts they have made earlier but the reformed JEE process will come into force from 2007, board spokesperson and Director of IIT Chennai M S Ananth told reporters on Saturday.
Seven IIT directors and the Joint Director in Union Human Resources Development Ministry Ravi Mathur attended the meeting. A section of students in various parts of the country are protesting against the proposed reforms by the IITs.
"Students and parents had pointed out certain factors, like stress on examinations and weightage on Board results following which a task force was formed to consider the issue. The IITs standing committee approved the reforms and forwarded it to the Ministry of HRD. Today, the Joint Admission Board has ratified the reforms," Ananth said.
Announcing the reforms, Ananth said school results will be considered during admission to the IITs - "A student will have to secure 60 per cent marks in aggregate in Plus II. For SC/ST and physically handicapped students, the cut-off has been fixed at 55 per cent."
IIT-Kharagpur Director and Board Chairman S K Dube said that the reforms were pro-education, pro-student and in national interest. "Only the coaching institutions will be affected which do not focus on all-round development. School education must be given importance. With these reforms the stress-level will obviously go down'', Dube said.
Mathur said the government would not interfere with the joint decision of the IITs. "In years to come, we also have well laid-out plans to increase the intake in IITs,'' Mathur said.
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