The race to crack the coveted Joint Entrance Examination and enter the Indian Institute of Technology admission is getting more frantic with time. What used to be a phenomenon of students cramming in coaching classes from grade 11 has now been pushed ahead. The preparation life now begins as early as the seventh grade in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. And the results are showing. Earlier this month, Hyderabad zone students raced ahead with 6 of the top 10 positions in this year’s JEE (Advanced).
The pressure cooker childhood of IIT dreamers has a storied reputation, but the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh models’ success may just offer a new template. Coaching institutes such as Hyderabad-headquartered Resonance Junior Colleges and Sri Chaitanya are now saying they will expand this to cities across India.
And it’s euphemistically and innocently called the ‘integrated model’ by teachers and industry insiders.
“The integrated model should be in every village,” said Purnachandra Rao, director of Resonance Junior Colleges.
Five years ago, the integrated model spread to middle school, starting as early as seventh grade in some areas. It aims to maximise students’ potential of performing well in their Class 12 board exams as well as getting admission into top engineering and medical colleges such as the IITs and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“Ninety per cent of all students who take proper coaching for JEE and NEET from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were studying in integrated model style,” Rao said. He believes that this model is responsible for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana’s success in JEE and NEET. “Speak to someone who cracked JEE, they’ll tell you how important it is to start early… as early as seventh, eighth grade.”
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The integrated model
The integrated model was conceptualised by the likes of Sri Chaitanya and Narayana coaching institutes. It focuses on two things simultaneously—board exam and entrance test preparations. This model is being adopted by middle schools and junior colleges as well.
By introducing students to the exam format sooner, educational institutes are able to create a strong foundation for later years’ preparation. At each grade level, students learn the same NCERT/CBSE material that they would have learned in a regular curriculum. The only difference is that the model is much more “application-based” instead of “theory-based” teaching style of regular schools, which better meets the demands of entrance exams like the JEE and NEET. Additionally, this helps students prepare for science and mathematics Olympiads as well.
Since Olympiads and entrance exams have a similar style of questions, doing well in the former “rewards students’ merit” and better prepares them for the latter.
So far, the model is yielding great results. According to Rao, at least 3,000-3,500 students out top 5,000 best performers in JEE are estimated to have studied under it in both the Telugu states. Through local advertisement and increased access to information about toppers, people are now gaining awareness of the top-performing coaching institutes and are opting for these programmes more and more. “Everyone has to compete. Parents can see it’s for the betterment of their children,” Rao said.
Resonance Junior Colleges, Sri Chaitanya, Narayana Institute among many others plan to expand the integrated model throughout various small districts and villages in India. Coaching of various levels is already available throughout the country but the effectiveness and depth of material taught varies from place to place, which creates an unequal playing ground for JEE aspirants. By expanding their base to different parts of India, these institutes want to bring consistency in students’ preparations and their performances in both the formats of exams. As more and more students start toiling for undergraduate entrance exams in middle school, their aptitude will increase. Other aspirants will find it a challenge to match their peers’ level to secure a seat at the top colleges in the country. If typical school students take 10 to 15 minutes to solve a multiple-choice questionnaire, those studying under the integrated model are learning to crack in two minutes, Rao said.
But the faster pace and increased difficulty levels of subjects can take away the fun quotient of learning. And that’s why very few students like the curriculum of the integrated model.
However, being exposed to such competitiveness sooner in academic life reduces test anxiety among students and helps them build a mindset to ace entrance exams, Rao added.
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IIT dreamers
Even after cracking JEE Advance, only the best-performing students make it to IITs and even fewer get their desired engineering branch. “It is definitely a challenge. Many of the students are unidimensional, they are not socially adept. And that has certain implications on how they integrate and develop on campus,” said Krishnan Narayanan, president of the IIT-Madras alumni association.
The alumni association started a new programme in 2020-2021 session called Career and Life Coaching (CLIC). Under the programme, over 50 students of IIT-Madras are selected—based on their CVs—as Young Research Fellows. These fellows are paired with experienced alumni for mentorship and to explore their areas of interest.
As more people become qualified to ace the JEE, competition for the limited number of seats will increase. So, increasing the number of seats to ease the pressure is key. A professor at a prestigious engineering institute in India said that “though the number of [engineering] seats is increasing, the funding per seat is decreasing.”
IIT Madras sought to expand the number of seats available by offering an online BSc degree course in programming and data science in the 2020-2021 session. As per the guidelines of the New Education Policy (NEP), the online degree programme offers multiple exit points—in the first year (certificate), second year (diploma), third year (BSc degree) and fourth year (BS degree). Those who pass with a degree from this programme can still “tap into the same IIT network,” Narayanan said. The acceptance rate of these online programs hovers around 25 per cent to 30 per cent, much higher than the acceptance rate of the IITs through JEE.
As rules for the race to India’s top college seats keep changing, students in middle schools are already gearing up for it. Schools, parents and coaching institutes are gearing them up for it. FIITJEE, a coaching institute with centres across the country, came up with a programme called Little Genie, which aims to raise the IQ of fifth graders.
“Success is never defined in absolute sense. It is very much a subject of relative performance. Children need to imbibe the spirit of competitiveness from an early age and start preparation for major milestone achievements, well in advance so as to avoid stress and anxiety at a later stage,” the FIITJEE website mentions.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)