Saturday, September 06, 2008

The Indian Institutes of Technology, IIT, are prestigious institutions and are even recognised abroad. There were five such institutes in five different cities in India but seven more have been set up this year without buildings, faculty or infrastructure. Thus the students enrolled in the newly set up Rajasthan IIT are being taught in Kanpur. It is doubtful that Kanpur will have the resources to suddenly handle double the number of students and standards of teaching are bound to fall. Students to the IITs are recruited through an elimination examination called the Joint Entrance Exam or JEE. This year's results are shocking. The last candidate in the General category got out of 200 in each subject 63 in Maths, 72 in Physics and 45 in Chemistry for a total of 180 in 600. The last candidate in the Scheduled Caste, SC, category got 38,8 and 58 respectively for a total of 104 while that in the Scheduled Tribes, ST, category got 36,12 and 56 for a total of 104. The really shocking thing is that the General category candidate had an all India rank of 6773 while the SC one had a rank of 689 and the ST one was 159. This is extreme injustice. Next year cut offs will be lowered still further which will allow SC/ST candidates with zero in Physics to secure a place in IIT. Professors will be forced to pass these students or they will be accused of bias. Their certificates will not show their JEE marks and they will be treated as equal until disasters happen. How long before IITs are seen as rubbish? Genius is unique and hated by the garbage who want everyone to stink like them. Sadly India will be seen as producer of only garbage.

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