That the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA)-run process of common admissions to the IITs, NITs & other institutes was successful in reducing vacant seats across institutes is not enough, it has also helped reduce stress on students, stated HRD Minister Smriti Irani, at an NIT Council meeting early this month. The NIT Council is the body that governs all the NITs, IISERs & IIEST.

The same council meeting also raised a few proposals, and a core committee was formed to evaluate the same.

The recommendations that the core committee will evaluate are:

– Do away with the 40% weightage on 12th scores. The allocation and ranking to be purely in the JEE scores.

– One Rank, One Exam, One Counselling: the JEE-Advanced be revamped, such that admissions for both IITs & NITs be through the same exam, unlike now where IITs accept JEE Advanced & NITs JEE Main.

Another discussion point of the meeting was increasing the fees at the NITs. Currently at Rs. 70,000 PA, it is expected to skyrocket to nearly Rs. 2,00,000 PA.

While increasing the fees is a good idea – it will reduce the load on the government in subsidizing education, and they have come up with plans to ensure it does not hurt students, the other recommendations do need a lot of introspection.

One rank, exam & counselling is a good idea, it will reduce the headaches students go through annually. What do you think?