A group on facebook has urged all students at IITs to boycott classes on September 23 in protest of HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s proposal to scrap IIT-JEE.
The group called iitians.org has posted a message asking all students to join hands to protest against the Indian government’s “desire to corrupt IIT admission process, all IIT students are requested to boycott classes on Sep 23rd. Go to movie, call in sick, sleep over, do anything apart from attending classes.”
Sibal has proposed a single entrance exam for engineering institutes across the country much like SAT in the US. This is to come into effect from 2013.
Iitians.org, which claims that “IITians species are under threat”, insists that the proposal has “critical drawbacks”. Their facebook page mentions five points:
1. Quality of IIT students will suffer
2. Too much pressure and stress on student
3. Spread of coaching centres
4. Lack of options, one failure and you are a gone case
5. Increase suicide and other mental conditions due to one choice/too much pressure
There are currently over 150 engineering entrance exams across the country. According to a report in a Mumbai tabloid, over 800 students have supported the boycott.