IIT JEE 2011: OBC Candidates Queued Up For The Exam

Mumbai: This year, a few more Other Backward Category (OBC) aspirants have queued up for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) 2011 to get enrolled into the Indian Institutes of Technology. The number of candidates from the OBC category had risen ever since a special quota was introduced for them.

As per sources, the OBCs form about 24% of all IIT aspirants a drop of 4% from JEE 2010. In fact, the drop looks magnified when compared to 2008, the year the quota was introduced. For then, the same percentage of OBC students took the JEE for a much smaller pool of seats.

Moreover, the engineering colleges rolled out the 27% OBC reservation equally over three years, and in 2008, more than 72,000 candidates took the JEE for 618 seats. JEE-2011 is scheduled to be held on April 10, 2011. This year, the number of scheduled caste and tribe students has risen. However, the general category students make up the largest rise about 62% of all exam takers.

IIT-Kanpur is conducting the entrance test this year. Although 2011 has witnessed the smallest rise in the total aspirants of 6% when compared to 2010, competition is unlikely to ease. For the student intake in the elite tech schools is not likely to rise with the IITs grappling with accommodation shortage.

Besides, the 2011 exam is likely to be the last edition of the test as per information. A committee, headed by secretary of science and technology department T Ramaswamy, will decide JEE's future. Also, it will be up to the panel to decide whether to scrap the test and conduct a single entrance exam for all tech colleges in the country, or follow an earlier committee's recommendation of selecting students following a series of screenings: Their Std XII scores, a national aptitude test and then a JEE for the IITs.

Furthermore, whichever way the Ramaswamy report goes, but, the IIT faculty believes the entrance test will change permanently in its composition. According to the statement of an IIT Director with the implementation of the core science curriculum in all high schools across the country, we are likely to see a larger share of state board students take the JEE. Currently, the test is dominated by CBSE students.