'India should have single engineering entrance exam'

New Delhi, April 25 (IANS) With reforms in the IIT entrance tests being mulled, the founder of the prestigious Super 30 coaching institute, Anand Kumar, has suggested a single entrance exam for all engineering colleges in the country.

Kumar met Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal Tuesday on the reforms needed for Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), which is held annually to select candidates for admission to 15 IITs and two other institutions.

"A single engineering exam should be held which should be objective questions based on 11th and 12th curriculum," he said adding, "the exam should be held three times and the score of best two should be calculated".

He believes the proposed pattern of including weightage of 12th board exam results and an entrance exam on a new pattern will be exploited by coaching institutes.

"Even before the new pattern could be announced, the coaching institutes have started new-pattern programmes to make good money from the innocent students," he told IANS after a meeting with the HRD minister.

Super 30 is an educational programme started in Patna by Kumar. Established in 2002, it selects 30 meritorious candidates each year from economically backward sections of society and trains them for the the entrance examination of (IIT-JEE).

"The proposed introduction of aptitude test and weightage to plus two board results cannot do away with the dependence on coaching. Instead, the coaching institutes are trying to cash in on this new trend to their advantage," Kumar said.

"The students would now be under more pressure trying to deal with the challenges on three fronts-preparing for plus two, the subject test for IIT-JEE and the new aptitude test -and the coaching institutes will make more money," he said.

Kumar suggests a single entrance exam for engineering on the lines of single exam suggested for medical colleges. He also says proposed adding of weightage may not work out as planned due to difference in marking standards.

So far, Kumar's 236 students have made it to the IITs, drawing worldwide attention to the programme.