Vijayamma Demands Admission Reforms

On Friday, YSR Congress president Y S Vijayamma requested Human Resource Development minister M M 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 exams. She also urged him to consider an alternative for the weightage norm in the JEE-Main.

In a letter to the HRD minister, Vijayamma said that educationists, students and parents were very concerned about the adverse effect that these reforms, which have been introduced for admissions into IITs, NITs and into other centrally-funded techincal-educational institutions, will have on AP students.

"To get admission into such educational institutions, one has to face the Joint Entrance Examination, JEE- Main, first. If the student manages to secure a position among the first 1, 50,000 successful candidates, he/she is then eligible to face the JEE-Advanced test at the second stage," she said.

Vijayamma further said, "Reports indicate that, despite the 2-layer filtration and admission test, nearly 100 students from Andhra Pradesh have lost the opportunity of joining the central government-sponsored IITs because of the rule that mandates that candidates need to be in the top-20 percentile band in the second year of the Intermediate examination."

Y S Vijayamma reported that though the rule was intended to ensure exceptional performance by students in the Intermediate course, the yardstick of the top-20 percentile is causing anxiety to the students.

She went on to disclose that due to the top-20 percentile yardstick, the cut-off marks for general category students in Andhra Pradesh stands at 91.88%, which is very high compared to other states. In some states, the cut-off marks percentage stands at 53.6, Vijayamma said in the letter.

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. Students should be told prior to their admission into the Intermediate course they must get 60% or 70% marks in the examination,? she said. (INN)