Online JEE: Too soon?

The decision of the Joint Admission Board of IITs on Sunday to conduct the advanced exam for entrance to the prestigious engineering institutes only through the online mechanism appears a bold one. In the last JEE (Main) exam, which is common to those seeking admissions to IITs, NITs and other Centrally-supported engineering colleges, only 10 per cent of the 13 lakh students who sat the test chose to go the online route, though the HRD ministry had enabled the option. It would be salutary to know why 90 per cent of candidates chose the “brick-and-mortar” path — the traditional pen/pencil-on-paper route. If the reason was better understood, it would be easier to appreciate the hurdles candidates face in going online all the way.

It appears two lakh of the 13 lakh who took the JEE (Main) exam qualified for the advanced exam for selection to IITs. The government has not made public how many of this lot had opted to be tested online at the JEE (Main) hurdle. If this proportion was very high, the decision to conduct the IITs’ advanced entrance test can be said to have some justification. However, caution may still be warranted in order to avoid an elite bias. The questions are obvious: will students from small-town or rural India, or for that matter even many middle-class students in big cities, be at a disadvantage as many may not have laptops and may not be used to working on computers even if these are provided at the exam centres?