NAT to assess abilities of IIT aspirants
Authority to be set up in coming months to conduct tests in latter half of the year.
New Delhi/Kolkata: In a move that will alter the way entrance examinations to IITs and other top engineering institutes are conducted, the HRD ministry is working to establish a National Authority for Testing (NAT) to assess abilities of aspirants before they appear for JEE. The NAT is proposed to be established in the coming months and its first major task would be to conduct tests in the latter half of the year.
The scores obtained in NAT test would form the basis for shortlisting candidates for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE-advanced) 2017. JEE-advanced test is conducted for entrance to the IITs.
The HRD Ministry may soon seek the nod of the Union Cabinet for setting up the testing agency.
The HRD ministry began working on the proposal for setting up the NAT after a committee constituted by the IIT council recommended changes to entrance examination structure for these prestigious institutes including setting up of a National Testing Service. As per the recommendations, the testing service would hold tests on the basis of which around four lakh students would be shortlisted for JEE.
IIT-Kharagpur launches innovation centre
IIT Kharagpur has launched an innovation centre to promote innovation am-ong its students.
Named after its alumnus and former faculty, the M.N. Faruqui Inno-vations Centre was launched on Saturday with seed-funding by another alumnus Arjun Malhotra, the co-founder of HCL technologies, officials said.
Understanding that innovations is not related to any specific domain or discipline, they said this centre was being set up to encourage and encompass multi-disciplinary interactions between students and faculty at all levels of education, undergraduate, postgraduate and research.