EXAM PATTERN OF THE IIT-JEE : CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT !

 KOTA SUICIDES : ANY SOLUTIONS ?

For the past many years, JEE coaching hubs especially Kota & Hyderabad have recorded student suicides every year of which many were unreported besides thousands of (unreported) cases of mental depression, hyper-anxiety and mental trauma every year. In 2023 alone so far, there have been 26 reported suicides of students in Kota which has gained national media attention and has prompted the Rajasthan Govt to ban all internal exams of coaching institutes for 2 months. There may be multiple reasons (illness, break-ups, academic failure, pressure from parents, unpaid loans etc) for this phenomenon (accurate info on causes of suicide is difficult to find) and this article attempts to identify the non-behavioural external probable causes behind these suicides and suggests measures from all stake-holders (Govt, coaching classes, schools, parents, students, society and media too!) to significantly resolve this burning issue.

Let us first accept one basic premise that suicides or depression or hyper-anxiety or any externally triggered mental health issue amongst students is the result of high stress levels experienced by their minds. If we examine the current JEE / NEET exam system and the prevalent coaching methods  adopted by different coaching classes and the perceptions / attitude of most parents w.r.t. to their wards and the competitive scenario in general, it becomes obvious that every JEE / NEET aspirant is subjected to a fairly stressful phase in the 2-years of XI & XII. Depending on how the student navigates this challenging phase, the student may feel anything from being absolutely happy & confident to being completely famished, depressed or traumatic or even suicidal – one may witness a whole emotional spectrum. Advertisements of coaching classes only highlight the brighter side of the picture which actually is only a small percentage of the total students studying with them any given year.

Let us try to understand the probable governing causes and solutions to this phenomenon of poor mental health of JEE / NEET aspirants especially in coaching hubs like Kota & Hyderabad closely :

1.    GOVT / NTA / IIT :  The Central Govt of India, the National Testing Agency (NTA) and IITs are a major stakeholder when we analyse the cause of student stress. They decide the  Entrance exam system, the ranking system and the admissions system. Though the syllabus, exam pattern and level of difficulty of both JEE MAINS and NEET are alright considering that it is a selection exam for elite National Engineering colleges and Medical colleges of the nation, the notification for the exams comes in quite late often and the JEE MAINS first exam happens barely a few days before XII Boards exams or their practical exams are about to begin. This creates stress for students as they need to balance both. The eligibility criteria of 75% Aggregate marks (or be in Top 20 Percentile of your XII Boards) is a cause of stress too as balancing Entrance exam performance with XII Boards performance is not an easy task for students and creates undue stress. For almost 50 years since 1961, the IITs expected barely 35% marks in XII Boards and cracking IIT-JEE was the only criteria for selection. But still the IITs produced in their first 50 years remarkable alumni which has created a stellar brand equity for the IITs globally. Then why insist on 75% Aggregate in XII Boards exam which tests nothing but rote learning ?

    JEE/NEET aspirants need to balance their time for Entrance exam studies with college commitments too. This is a major source of stress for many students and their parents. In many parts of India, this issue has been resolved via the mechanism of unofficial tie-ups between junior colleges and coaching institutes. Given the ubiquitous extend of this phenomena,  the Govt in the interests of the JEE/NEET aspirants community may either officially exempt JEE / NEET aspirants enrolled in credible coaching institutes (which pay GST, IT etc) from attending regular classes in junior colleges or legalise the Attendance Tie-ups between junior colleges and coaching institutes. Another method of resolution can be that (State) Govts can allow students to enroll only for Practicals in junior colleges at a lower fees which shall generate revenue for colleges without having to accomodate them daily and aslo liberate students from the pressure of attending JEE coaching institutes and college both. 

           

The uncertain pattern of the JEE ADVANCED conducted by the IITs is a cause of lot of undue stress thrusted onto student’s minds. The exam pattern of JEE ADVANCED (total marks, total number of questions, marking scheme, pattern of questions etc) is all kept a secret until the day of the exam and level of difficulty of the exam in recent years especially in Mathematics is inordinately high or is lengthy. No wonder the common merit list (CML or CRL of about 40000 Ranks) cut-offs have been as low as 17.5% marks for 3 consecutive years from 2020-2022 with single-digit % cut-offs of Maths. Even IIT Professors shall struggle to crack the JEE ADVANCED in its current avatar. They must therefore exhibit more sensitivity to ground realities of IIT aspirants when they set papers which shall reduce the stress levels of students and yet assess the right candidate.

The IITs must consider normalising the difficulty level of the JEE ADVANCED paper and declare the exam pattern along with marking scheme before hand to reduce the stress levels of students. As per NEP, the ONE NATION – ONE EXAM proposal is present according to which JEE ADVANCED may even be cancelled and JEE MAINS shall become the single national Entrance exam. This too may be a healthy move from the Govt side if the IITs do not make amends to the JEE ADVANCED system and persist with their insensitive and ruthless ways of administering their exam system. After all over 75% of the Top 10000 Ranked students in JEE MAINS and JEE ADVANCED figure in both the lists with slight rank displacements on an averaged-out basis !  

Another blunder is the admissions system which based on the rank of the student in the Entrance exam. Students are asked to choose the branch of Engineering at the time of admission itself and here the Rank of the student in JEE MAINS or JEE ADVANCED is the only criteria. In many Universities in the US and UK, students are enrolled only in the ENGINEERING branch in their first year and exposed to a flavour of different branches of Engineering in the first two years (or one year) and then are supposed to decide their chosen branch from third year onwards (or second year onwards). The access to their chosen branch is subject to their academic performance in the Engineering college and not only on the Rank of the Entrance exam. Why can’t the IITs, NITs, IIITs, GFTIs adopt the same system ? The Rank in the JEE has becomes too much of a high-stakes affair as college and branch both depend on it. With the above suggested system, the student will only choose the college based on Rank. The branch shall be decided by the student with greater maturity after one or two years based on summative assessment in the college rather than a single-day performance in an Entrance exam ! The Computers Science seat in IIT Bombay has closed under AIR 50 for the past many years now. If the above suggestion is followed, students upto AIR 1000 can select IIT Bombay and then hope to bag a Computer Science seat after studying well for a year in IIT. The distribution of top rankers amongst the 23 IITs shall also happen more equitably than the lop-sided way it is happening currently with IIT Bombay bagging all the Toppers !

 

2.   COACHING INSTITUTES :  The toxic hyper-feverish toppers-obsessed coaching culture created by Kota, Hyderabad & Delhi coaching classes over the years is the second major cause of this phenomena. The coaching system is tweaked to benefit and empower only the top performing 10 or 20% of the students they enrol depriving the majority of the students of the academic benefits and making them feel like second or third class citizens in the student community. By creating a hierarchical batches culture and frequent shuffling of batches based on exam performance, a toxic hyper-feverish culture is created which negatively impacts the minds of moderately or poorly performing students.

Again, the results of any coaching institute are represented in advertisements and pamphlets by the Toppers pictures and ranks. But the success ratio is rarely or never highlighted. Success ratio is defined by the number of successful students divided by the number of students who attended the complete coaching program. Most JEE / NEET institutes tend to be exclusivists and thus topper-centric as that is what enables them to bag next year’s admissions. Instead of this, if the Govt mandates a rule in the upcoming Coaching Classes Act, that coaching classes must highlight only Success Ratio and final college Placements of all enrolled students (for which GST is paid) and not just a few Toppers, then coaching institutes will shift from being exclusivists to being inclusivists and work on every student to build overall good results and college placements.

There is no proper counselling and guidance given in most JEE / NEET coaching institutes. They only focus on teaching and testing in their programs. If students are counselled in a way that they see the top colleges like the IITs or AIIMS as ambitious career options amongst a host of other equally good options, then the obsession for any one college won’t be there so much. When students know that they have a variety of colleges and courses to target with the same Entrance, it comforts them. When students focus on building their own knowledge and problems solving skills instead of just being a part of the competitive rat race, then they are more centred and stress-free in their minds and are less likely to fall in the pit of mental health issues. 

Having a dedicated counselling cell comprising of psychologists and spiritual healers can help. Meditation programs can help too. Having cultural and musical programs or picnics in the institute can also keep students in good spirits.

3.  STUDENTS : Students must know that getting admission to a good undergraduate college is just one milestone in their career path and there are many more milestones to cross to be termed successful in their careers. One must know that there are unsuccessful people even in the IITs and AIIMs and very successful people from lesser known State or town level colleges in India. And there are multiple colleges and courses which can enable any student to cross this first milestone too. So students also must keep targets like IITs or AIIMS but with a caveat that it is an ambitious first target with a back-up plan of other colleges and courses which may be chosen too. This will hedge your bets and allow your mind to study for the JEE / NEET in a stress-free manner.

Peer pressure is one more source of stress. Students must avoid comparing oneself with other students and not worry too much about their performance in coaching classes exams as the ranking changes tremendously when the final exam comes in. Students must just aspire to be a better version of themselves as they progress in their program and focus only on learning. If you do well in a Test, feel happy but still learn from your mistakes in the Test. If you do poorly in a Test, analyse your mistakes and learn from them and move on. Make the Test as a Win-Learn proposition and not a Win-Lose proposition. This shall keep you centered.

Compete with yourself and not with your peers. Learn from your peers and teach them too few things you know. Knowledge grows when you share it. Having a small group of 4-6 studious friends who help out each other is a great de-stresser and enriches you emotionally and intellectually too. Go for such healthy group dynamics.

Regulating your sleep cycle is another important aspect. Sleep for 6-8 hours daily as per your natural sleep pattern. Sleep in the night only by going to sleep before 12 daily.

Atleast 1 hour of some Physical Fitness activity like playing a sport or Gym or Yoga or Push-ups or Surya Namaskars etc is a must on a daily basis for mind-body balance. This offsets a lot of stress from your nervous system and keeps you fit and healthy.

You may reserve one hour daily for screen time where you play with your gadgets for video games, indulge in social media and catch up with your friends etc.  But spending excessive time on these things will disrupt your studies. Hence you must remember that you are supposed to use the gadgets for your entertainment and communication and the gadgets are not supposed to use you !

4.    PARENTS : Parents must keep in mind that the first 15-16 month of any JEE / NEET coaching program, the student is at a stage of learning and gaining knowledge and hence must NOT be pressurised to do well in any internal Test of a coaching institute. As long as their ward is analysing his/her Test performance and learning from mistakes, they must not be worried. Performance growth on the JEE / NEET path happens slowly but surely and this is quite unlike any other school or other exam in their past where results come as soon as you study well. JEE / NEET exams are based on Known concepts – Unknown problems paradigm and hence besides knowledge, the student needs to learn to cultivate the right exam temperament and learn some exam strategies too. Atleast 40% of the JEE or NEET score of a student is due to exam behaviour and only 60% is because of knowledge. All this takes time and hence parents must exercise patience to see results and learning outcomes. As long as the student is following a sound daily regimen of right diet, sleep and exercise and is studying for 6 hours atleast daily for JEE / NEET, the parents need not worry at all for the first 15-16 months. Being knowledge focussed in the first 15-16 months and being exam / marks focussed in the remaining 6-7 months is the right strategy to crack the JEE/NEET exams.

Parents must NOT compare your ward’s performance with Sharmaji’s son either. Such comparisons adversely affect the morale of the student and serve little purpose.

Parents must also not obsess over college exams performance and Board exams performance. The prevalent rules supported by a Supreme Court 2016 judgement dictate that only Entrance exams marks matter for admission to Engineering and Medical colleges. XII Boards exams have zero weightage but serve merely as an eligibility criteria. And college internal exams have absolutely no weightage anywhere and bear zero equity for the student’s career prospects. So, the student must not be pestered for college exams and Boards exams performance as such. A dedicated one month of preparation for XII Boards before the Boards exams is sufficient to crack 75% + in XII Boards exams for a sincere JEE / NEET student.

 

5.  SOCIETY : The JEE / NEET aspirants community is mostly from the middle-class society in India which believes in this notion that Engineers or Doctors are the most potent career paths for a successful career & life too. Though this notion is not entirely flawed, it is important to appreciate that there are many more career paths available to students besides Engineering & Medicine to chart a successful career. Consulting a career counsellor in Std.9 or 10 will help you identify the ideal career path for your ward which maps with his or her natural aptitude. If the awareness of this aspect spreads in society, many students who blindly follow their friends or societal trends to join JEE / NEET coaching and later get stressed and suffer from various mental health issues will not fall into this trap in the first place.

6.   MEDIA :  The Indian media (print and digital both) must stop obsessing with IITians who bag crore-plus salaries. Getting placements with high salary packages must be kept a private affair between the student and the recruiter. It is not needed to be hyped in media. In 2022, barely 960 IITians from 23 IITs which is less than 5% of the total number of IITians in that year bagged INR 50+ lac salaries. Average salaries in each IIT was in INR 10-16 lac range only which is similar to many other lesser known Engineering colleges in India. The media is responsible for creating a larger-than-life image of certain professions and college alumni. Media needs to de-hype and present a reasonable picture of the higher educational scenario.

If all the stakeholders do what is suggested atleast to a reasonable extent, then the writer believes that unfortunate incidents of suicide, depression etc amongst the student community shall greatly reduce or even stop. Else, it will be extremely difficult to arrest this phenomenon in future especially because the current teenager generation is not as resilient as the past generations and are volatile in their temperament too thanks to the silent pandemic called electronic fever which has gripped all generations since the smartphone has become affordable.  

At a time when the Govt talks of an upcoming Amrit Kaal for the nation, boasts of a demographic dividend due to our huge young population and we pride on our strength in STEM fields, it is all the more important that the above suggestions are taken seriously by every stake holder including the Govt who can also lead the efforts. Time will tell how much and when the above gets implemented and the current toxic hyper-competitive environment gets replaced by a happy learning focussed environment.

 

-       Durgesh C. Mangeshkar

Director, IITPK Pune

IITPK is a 21-years old Pune-based premier academy for JEE / NEET Entrance exams coaching

To know more, visit iitpk.com