New Delhi, Aug. 21: Next year’s Joint Entrance Examination for admission to the 15 IITs will be held on April 10 and the pattern of the test will remain unchanged, the Joint Admission Board decided today.
The board, which oversees the entrance test, met at IIT Kanpur and decided to stick to the current pattern for 2011 as a panel of IIT directors, set up to revamp the system, had not yet submitted its report.
IIT Kanpur will be in charge of JEE 2011.
“The existing pattern of the entrance will be followed next year also. Special care will be taken in the preparation of question papers to ensure that there is no scope for any confusion,” an IIT director told The Telegraph.
However, students will have to answer questions in the same subjects — mathematics, chemistry and physics — as in JEE 2010 and in the same format.
The IIT-JEE was in the news this year for misleading instructions. Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal had to intervene and the Joint Admission Board had to devise a special formula to evaluate the papers.
“Normally, our questions are foolproof. This year there were certain problems because of printing errors. We have learnt from our mistakes and such mistakes will not be repeated,” the director added.
The government wants to change the JEE format and replace it with an aptitude test. A committee headed by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya is preparing a report on the proposed evaluation system, which plans to give more importance to Class XII board marks.
“The new format has not yet been finalised by the committee. After the committee submits its report, the government will take a decision on it. Maybe, the new system will be effective from 2012,” the director said.
This year, about four lakh students had taken the test for a shot at the 10,000 seats the IITs offer.