"The outside state quota in all the engineering colleges under AIEEE would be filled on the basis of All India Ranks, rather than the state quotas from this year..".I still vividly remember seeing this piece of article a couple of months back in a newspaper and soon after that i was lost in the pros and cons of this critical decision.Being an ex-student of NITT, i started thinking about the effect of this move on NIT's in general.
Nostalgia gripped me and took me deep down the memory lane to my school days when i was slogging day and night to get into NITT - my eternal dream ( I never seriously tried for IIT's).Since my brother had already gone through the AIEEE route,i had a fairly good idea about the admision trend in various colleges and the rank one needs to get there.It was heart-breaking to see students from some states with much inferior ranks easily getting the best colleges , while guys from states like Andhra,Rajasthan,Jharkhand,Bihar etc. settling for much inferior colleges and much inferior branches inspite of having much-much better ranks than guys from these more privileged states. Believe me it used to hurt a great deal!! It was such an irony to see that a Mech guy from Andhra was having better rank than most of the Computer Science guys of these states.I used to feel sorry for that guy!! I even had a dislike for the system because they would be allowing NRI's through the DASSA quota, even though they were less deserving because they never went through the struggle of cracking one of the most competitive exams of India. So, reverting back to the moment when i saw the above mentioned news article , tears of happiness rolled down my eyes. Justice and respect for merit at last,i thought.
Then i thought a little more about this decision and how would this influence my alma-mater. First thing that came to my mind is that the academic standards of NITT would increase by leaps and bounds. NITT would be flooded with nerds( Just kidding!!). Finally NITT would start to challenge IIT's more consistently.This new batch would take NITT to the zenith of success. I felt so good to think that the future of our NITT is in bright hands. Inspite of that i had a hollow feeling inside. I kept on pondering further before the answer struck me.
"NITT is like a mini-India" .We NITTians take pride in the unity in diversity as part of our NITT culture.It's amazing how individuals from every nook and corner of the country converge to this temple of education and become friends forever , cutting across all the barriers of caste,creed,religion,region etc.The best part in NITT apart from the education is the plethora of people,cultures and customs that one comes across.I personally from my stay in NITT feel that i know India better know than i could have ever known without this enriching experience called "NITT". It is the diversity that adds colours to NITT's culture. And with this new mode of selection that diversity would surely take a beating.From my experience in the engineering field and the trends over the past few years, i am pretty sure that many states would get wiped off from the scene and NITT would never be the same again.It hurts for me to envision such a NITT.
Apart from this aspect,this new mode of selection also misses one very crucial point.They have opened the doors for thousands of students of AIEEE factory who are being trained day-and-night by the top coaching institutes in cities.But what about the less-fortunate guys of the less-fortunate states who don't have access to such high-quality of education.The AIEEE board,i feel,haven't considered the non-uniformity of opportunities available across India.They are sadly mistaken to assume that the quality of education in the FITJEE's, NARAYANA's etc, in the big cities is the same as the insufficient technical education in the schools of Nagaland (Just a vague example).
I being a student and one who has already personally gone through both the sides of the coin , know how difficult it would have been for the AIEEE board to make such a tough decision. I don't know whether this is a right or wrong decison. All i can say is that this is a tricky decision!!
PS: These views are my perspective on the entire AIEEE scenario now. It is not aimed at any person or state in particular, it is just aimed at the system.
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