New Delhi, May 14: Out of a total of 2.45 lakh students qualified for JEE Advanced, only 1.73 lakh candidates registered for the same this year. The data provided by the JEE Advanced chairperson, ML Sharma, reveals that now, not every engineering aspirant dreams of getting admission to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). As many as 11.47 lakh candidates appeared for JEE Main 2019. Last year as well, not all the qualified students of JEE Advanced appeared for the same.
66,000 qualified candidates didn’t register in 2018
Last year, as many as 2.31 lakh students qualified for the national level engineering entrance exam, but only 1.65 lakh candidates chose to register for it. As not every examinee who registered, appeared for the exam, the number is expected to drop further based on the trend.
JEE Advanced is the second stage of Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), and only those candidates are eligible to appear for it who meet the cutoff based on JEE Mains score (held by the National Testing Agency).
Sanjay Govind Dhande, former director IIT Kanpur, head of IIITM Gwalior, an Indian engineer and educationist, said that students and parents still have IIT as their first choice, but not all the IITs are preferred by them. “Students do not wish to go to non-metro third generation IITs. They would rather choose a metro-based National Institute of Technology (NIT) than a non-metro based IIT. A lot of engineering aspirants these days also look forward to doing other things such as internship, etc. during breaks. Logistics is also a reason why far-flung IITs are not preferred much. Choosing a college based on Mains score also saves them time and extra efforts needed for Advanced,” he has been quoted as saying to a national daily.
Students interested in innovative career options
He added that students have a pressure of appearing for JEE Main as it gives them various opportunities to enter into the domain, but they might not be willing to pursue the basic B.Tech degree. They might be interested in a new-age creative career.
“Students are becoming more attracted towards more liberal and creativity-based fields. They often go for JEE Main to be on the safer side and often choose for more creative than analytics-based subjects which can include programmes in design etc provided by IIITs based on JEE Main score,” Dhande told a news daily.
