HRD Ministry wants JEE Main, JEE Advanced to be combined as one exam

Human Resource Department (HRD) Ministry wants to combine JEE Main and JEE Advanced examination to be one common entrance exam from 2015. According to the government decision, all the engineering colleges have to conduct common counselling for students who will be admitted in 2014. All the central government engineering colleges including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) will select the students through common entrance examination in 2015. Presently, JEE Main is conducted for admission to Engineering / Technology courses in NITs, CFTIs, SFTIs. JEE Advanced is conducted for admission to IITs and ISM Dhanbad. The top 1.5 lakh students of the JEE Main examination are eligible to appear in Advanced examination. "The HRD Ministry has decided to combine the JEE Main and JEE Advanced from next year," said Ashok Thakur, Higher Education Secretary. In 2012, Central Government divided the JEE examination into two. After a protest against the examination from students, parents and colleges, now the decision of merging the two examinations has been taken into account. "For this year, our agenda is that we want to have common counselling," Thakur said. "We are very keen on joint counselling. That's the issue and we want to get after them (IITs). Last year, we tried but IIT Delhi (the coordinating IIT) was very adamant." For presently, IITs conduct counselling first, then NITs and other Top colleges. Around 9,600 students were admitted to the IITs and ISM Dhanbad for undergraduate courses. More than 25,000 students were admitted by other top colleges. "This (two separate counsellings) defeats the purpose of a central exam. What we are asking them is to prepare one merit list," said Thakur. "The students of many NITs are very good and joint counselling will help the students and engineering schools in not just reducing hassles but will also help to reduce the number of seats falling vacant", said Thakur. Around 600 engineering seats at IITs and NITs were left vacant in 2012 counselling. By conducting the common counselling for IITs and NITs, reduces the seats left vacant. It can help the students to receive offers from both the institutes. "The effort should be to make life easier for students. I don't know about common counselling but if that reduces vacant seats, then it's good. But from a student's point of view, a good college with a good subject choice is very important," said Amit Kumar Biswal, a JEE-aspirant from Hyderabad this year. "Earlier, we used to do one round of counselling for admitting students, the government told us to do twice and then three rounds and we have done that. But has the situation improved? I don't think so. Students take admission and then leave for a better course or leave for a foreign school later. How will you fill up those seats?" said H.C. Gupta, a professor of IIT-Delhi and chairman of the IIT-JEE Advanced exam last year.
 Source: http://education.oneindia.in/news/hrd-ministry-wants-jee-main-jee-advanced-combined-one-exam-008408.html