Lucknow: Students welcomed central govt reforms in NEET and JEE to cut down need for coaching besides classroom studies, but some medical and engineering aspirants in the city said certain provisions in the proposal need clarity.The proposed changes include giving 50% weightage to Class XII board marks, allowing multiple attempts in a year, aligning entrance exams with the NCERT syllabus for class XI and XII syllabi, online entrance exams and introducing measures to prevent paper leaks.“Right now, everything depends on a day when the exam is held, but if proposal to hold 2-3 tests in a year is accepted, it will enable multiple opportunities to candidates, easing some pressure, but the process of normalisation of results needs clarification because every test will have different set of questions,” said a NEET aspirant, Richa Mehta.Regarding the provision of 50% weightage to class XII in the final merit list, students said that now NEET and JEE aspirants will have to work hard on all the subjects in Class XII and not just those related to science. “The issue, however, that needs clarification is how marks obtained by students of different boards will be normalised,” said Neeraj Jha, a Class XII student.Students also pointed out that the proposal is to set the entrance exam question paper in accordance with the NCERT syllabus for Class XII. The problem is not that every board in the country has NCERT-based syllabus for Class XII. So, those who have not studied NCERT syllabus will have to depend on separate coaching, said a JEE aspirant, Prashant Ojha, adding, the question is whether all state and central boards will adopt NCERT syllabus or not.Teacher at a prominent coaching institute, Mihal Ahuja, said coaching centres are expected to adjust to the new pattern, with their role likely to change rather than disappear, because the quality of classroom teaching in many schools is not good enough to prepare a student for competitive examinations.“Online entrance examination would be a good move, but one will have to ensure there is good connectivity in every nook and corner of the country so that students can appear without any difficulty,” said, Purab Chatterjee, a school teacher.
