Review admission norms into IITs and NITs, demands Vijayamma

Hyderabad, July 19 : YSR Congress President YS Vijayamma on Friday requested Human Resource Development Minister MM Pallam Raju to take steps to do justice to the students of Andhra Pradesh by reviewing the top-20 percentile norm in the JEE-Advanced and the weightage norm for the JEE-Main and find out alternative norms.

In a letter to the HRD Minister, Vijayamma said that the educationists, students and parents were very much concerned about the adverse effect on AP students of the reforms introduced for admissions into IITs, NITs and other centrally-funded technical educational institutions. To get admission into such educational institutions, one has to face the Joint Entrance Examination, JEE- Main first and be one among the first 1, 50,000 successful candidates to get eligibility to face the JEE-Advanced test at second stage, she said.

Reports indicate, despite the 2-layer filtration and admission test, nearly 100 students from AP have lost the opportunity of joining the Central Government-sponsored IITs because of the rule that they should be in the top-20 percentile band in second year of Intermediate examination.

Though the rule was intended to ensure exceptional meritorious performance by students in Intermediate course, the yardstick of top-20 percentile is causing anxiety to the students. Due to the top-20 percentile yardstick which has replaced the earlier 60 per cent marks in the Intermediate examination, the cut-off marks for general category students in AP stands at 91.88 per cent, which is very higher compared to other states. In some states, the cut-off marks percentage stands at 53.6, Vijayamma said in the letter.

This means that students in AP have to achieve 91.88 per cent marks to get eligibility for admission into IITs as against 53.6 per cent for the same for students in some other states. This is really a matter of serious concern for the students, she said.

Vijayamma said that the AP High Court, after hearing petitions filed by some students who have lost admission into the IITs because of the new rule, had already directed the IITs to reserve seats for them. “We therefore request you to have a thorough review of the top-20 percentile norm and replace it with an alternative one. It could be that students should be told prior to their admission into Intermediate course they must get 60 or 70 per cent marks in the examination and we strongly opine such a norm would be hailed by one and all,” she said.

The YSRCP honorary president said that students from Andhra Pradesh were unable to attain ranks in the JEE-Advanced despite their getting good ranks in JEE-Main and more than 97 per cent of marks in the Intermediate course. Therefore, she requested that the minister review the find out alternative norms to do justice to AP students. INN