After months of speculation, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will adopt the Common Admission Test (CAT) from 2012 onwards. This means that the IITs will not run the national Joint National Management Test (JMET), which was in operation for over ten years. Mukut Baruah, a Senior Assistant with Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), confirmed the news to PaGaLGuY and said that from 2012 JMET will cease to exist.

This move comes close on the heels of a statement made by All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) chairman SS Mantha last week that there should be one entrance exam for all MBA aspirants. While the HRD ministry, said in a press release that it would not be possible to have one exam for all, this move by the IITs, has been seen as a move to ease pressure on students, says sources in IIT. Last year, around 30,000 applicants took the IIT entrance exam.

Officials in IIT say that JMET is similar to the CAT in content, hence it made sense to have just one exam, the only difference is that JMET had a ‘higher maths’ quotient. The major IITs in Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Chennai and Roorkee have decided to go wth CAT from next year. Sources further added that the change of the CAT paper from a three section to a two-section format is also expected to aid IIT management aspirants. The two section lay stress on analysis and communication which was also a key testing point in the IIT management entrance exam.

It is a known fact that like other b-schools, even the IITs face a faculty crunch and abandoning the entrance exam will reduce the pressure on faculty and staff. Last month Professor MR Ravi, Vice Chairman, Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), IIT Delhi had told PaGaLGuY that number of aspirants appearing for JMET had declined. “Keeping in mind the amount of resources required to conduct a national level entrance test, the senates of the various IITs realised that the turnout for the test was not sufficient to warrant continuing the test,” Prof Ravi had said.

Ironically, last three years have also seen a steady decline in the number of students taking CAT. From almost 2.5 lakhs in 2009, the number slumped to a little over 2 lakhs last year. While the replacement of JMET might not really see a difference in number of CAT takers, it is expected to make a difference to those applying to the management arm of the IIT schools.

If not anything, it will make a differnce at least to those applying to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences – for some years the dates of JMET and TISS entrance exam clashed and if there were students who wanted both, had to often choose.