New Delhi: The Union human resources development ministry is planning to involve IIT students for creation of modules on various topics to help aspirants clear the fiercely competitive JEE entrance examination for these prestigious institutes.
The ministry’s plan comes in an effort to reduce the influence of coaching centres in such examinations. The proposal is to create an IIT-Pal app which would have free high-quality study material in 11 languages, including English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Odiya, Kannada, Malyalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi.
“The material will cover subjects like Physics, Chemistry and Maths. The plan is to invite volunteers from among 2nd year IIT students, under the guidance of an anchor professor,” sources stated.
IIT students will be invited to prepare notes on how best to teach the concept to aspirants and, on the basis of this exercise, winning entries will be chosen. “We aim to utilise the talent and enthusiasm of our students. “To ensure that there is some healthy competition and students are rewarded for their efforts, teams whose content on various topics is chosen may be given an honorarium of up to Rs 1 lakh each,” sources said.
The HRD ministry is also considering setting up a help centre, which will have a toll free number, where teaching assistants identified by each IIT will answer queries from aspirants.
According to the sources, this has been done in an effort to ensure that all children, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, do not face obstacles due to lack of proper guidance.
The material will not only be available on the IIT-Pal app, Web portal but also on Swayam, the HRD ministry’s massive open online courses platform, sources said.
