"Firewalk to IITJEE" by Quest causes fire in the media

Quest - Power Coaching for IITJEE is the new phenomenon in thee IITJEE space. It has been set the whole private coaching industry literally on fire. Started by Praveen Tyagi in 2002, it is showing signs of excellence, which are IITians are known for.
Quest has made a number of innovations in the prrivate coaching space, primary among them are:
1. 'Firewalk' seminar conducted by Anuj Khare
2. No Advertising
3. 'Super 30' - Free Coaching for the underprivileged
4. Multiple Micro-Centers

Quest has been an outsider to the coaching sector. Both the promoters of Quest quit their successful careers to jump into coaching students with the aim of having the No. 1 brand in the country. They are already the most publisized IITJEE brand in the country. Well on course to becoming the largest brand in terms of sales and value with in the next 2-3 years.

With its keen insight of the system, Quest has been pre-empting the changes made by the JEE Advisory Board (JAB). They launched IITJEE coaching programs, which were aligned to the school syllabus as early as 2002 in order to eliminate the conflict of Coaching with the school sector. As a result, Quest is the only brand with well defined systems to take complete care of the students needs at schools while preparing them for IITJEE coaching.

Unlike other coaching institutions, Quest has been in favor of the changes made by JAB. They believe that the coaching factories of Kota are doing more harm than good. The kota coaching institutions are seen as an temporary phenomenon, which is likely to die out soon with the changes introduced by JAB.

Another critical change was introduced in form of 'Firewalk' by Anuj Khare. Quest has brought to light a largely unnoticed phenomenon with this event. Whatever the quality of coaching in an institute may be, the final success depends on the student's ability to make use of it. Most of the times, students lose interest in the preparation due to the apparent enormity of the task. Regular motivational sessions can greatly enhance the perfrmance of students as demonstrated in the seminar. Firewalk was covered by various national publications like Indian Express, Pioneer, Star TV, ZEE News, Hindu etc. The details of the same are put on the blog Firewalk to IITJEE

All the other media coverage of Quest can be found on their website www.questtutorials.com

Quest Tutorials and its enviable success rate

Printed at www.MoneyControl.com on July 07, 2006

They met at IIT Roorkee and never thought they would one day end up being partners in their quest for knowledge. While Gaurav Mittal graduated to IIM Lucknow followed by a stint at an advertising agency, J Walter Thompson and Zensar Technologies, Praveen Tyagi moved to the US and worked with Oracle but dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur.


After brainstorming for months, Praveen decided education was his forte and India was his calling. He drew up a business plan to get into the tutorial business and brought an apprehensive Gaurav on board and that is how Quest Tutorials was born. Four years into the business of coaching and training IIT aspirants, Quest has an enviable success rate.


In a fairly crowded place, where there are a lot of small as well as large players, they have been pretty confident and have devised a business model and strategy, that has set them apart from the clutter. Gaurav Mittal told CNBC-TV18, "There are a lot of players in the market today, but there are a very few, who actually appeared to be thriving and passionate about winning again and again. We started with the confidence that we will crack it - let us start doing it and we will figure it out. The plans just kept developing as we went along."


Their first student came up to them with a lot of expectation. Although, they come from a background where they had never taught before but they somehow managed. "We needed three teachers and here we were just two guys. I am good in Maths and Chemistry, so I taught him both," adds Praveen.



They then developed a personal marketing team, which involved making bigger decisions so parents were kept informed. Further explaining the incremental growth, Gaurav explains, "We trained people to be counsellors and extended that counselling service, to reach out to our prospective students in their homes. We sent out people to give complete information, not just on our programme but also on engineering as a career." Hence, it became an entire career-counseling-at-home service. This is how they reached out to a lot of people and the numbers started churning in. Through word of mouth and their quality of service, people flocked in.


A mathematics whiz, Praveen still takes out time to teach students. What started with Rs 5 lakhs as initial capital, is now being roughly valued at over Rs 9 crore. Having trained over 3,000 students, of which 100 have made it to the IITs. Quest is now planning to go pan-India and is looking at setting up institutes in Bangalore and Pune by next year.


But do they have enough funds? "We are looking at venture capitalists, but we're definitely not looking at what is known as dump money from people, who are not going to put their mind into it. We don't want to go thinking money is everything, money will follow," avers Gaurav. By next year, they are looking at eight more centres in Delhi and in some other states too.


They are also looking at breaking out of the IIT market into the MBA market, which Gaurav believes will happen in the logical progression of things ie. 2-3 years down the line. He further adds, "We also need to expand the team for that and we need to get the right kind of people with the right set of skills. It will go in that direction but not immediately."


Life for Praveen and Gaurav has always meant striking out on their own and aiming at excellence. While growing their business is priority, Quest is targeting underprivileged IIT aspirants, with an innovative scheme called 'Super 30'.

These two are sure doing their bit for the underprivileged, with or without the reservations issue, dictating terms to them. They are quietly chipping away at their targets and pocketing glory, which is all in a days work for this duo.

Coaching factories in Kota badly hit

reprinted from Just do IIT

The results of 2006 confirmed the fears of the coaching factories like Bandal Classes in Kota, which thrive primarily on the students who join them after completing class XII.
Just the cahnge in the examination pattern resulted in a huge jump in the number of students who qualified for IITJEE immediately after XII. It increased from about 28% the previous year to about 44%, which is a jump of over 55%.
Next year, this percentage is likely to go above 60% as only students, who have completed XII in that year and the previous year, will be allowed to appear in IITJEE.
This vindicates the earlier point made in the blog that coaching destinations like Kota and particularly Bansal Classes may soon become a historical phenomenon. Kota is woefully inadequate in its school system. The schools have a reputation of not following the CBSE guidelines and making money by collaborating with the coaching setups. This has resulted in a lot of schools losing their CBSE affiliation.
The students who landed up in Kota were drop outs of 1,2 and 3 years who kept slogging for years.
A lot of small institutes have shut shop as they believe that the gold rush of coaching institutes in Kota has got over. The big ones like Bansal etc. have resorted to the money milking technique of giving admissions to as many people as possible, without giving too much importance to merit.
Bansal Classes once stood for good quality students and small batches. The Bansal of 2006 is the exact opposite of the same. It has become a commercial, money making factory where anybody can take admission in the name of IITJEE.
I guess, it is a good thing to do as the owner of Bansal and other coaching institutes in Kota can see that the end is near.

An analysis of the results of JEE-2006

reprinted from nanopolitan.blogspot.com

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has issued a press release about the results of the new, improvedTM Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted in April 2006 by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). It's clear that the Ministry wants a positive spin on the outcome, but it's equally clear that a lot of the news is not all that great. Let's take a look:

Bias against first-timers:

The number of candidates qualified in their first attempt is 2,761, which is 43.50 per cent of the total qualified candidates. This proportion is significantly greater than the corresponding value (28.49 per cent) in JEE-2005. The high proportion of first timers reflects the success of the changed pattern of examination in JEE-2006 in getting more number of students who have been equally good performer in qualifying examination (10+2). Hence, the main purpose of introducing a new examination pattern emphasizing on the importance of school education has been successfully fulfilled. ...

Bias against rural students:

The proportion of successful candidates belonging to towns and villages has also increased to 30.67 per cent [1943 students were from towns (1328) and villages (615), while 4400 were from cities], as compared to 28.02 per cent in JEE-2005 while the percentage has decreased in case of cities from 71.98 per cent in JEE-2005 to 69.37 per cent in JEE-2006. The proportional increase in the percentage from smaller towns further emphasize the success of the new JEE system and indicate reduced dependence on coaching centers which the candidates from town and village have no access to.

Bias against girls:

The application fee for female candidates was half (Rs.300/-) of the fees for male candidates (Rs.600/-). In this respect the new JEE system has also ensured a higher participation of female candidates as evident from the total number of registered female candidates of 58,997 in JEE-2006 as compared to 29,291 in JEE-2005. However, there is only marginal increase in successful female candidates as compared to JEE-2005.

Clearly, there has been significant 'progress' only in the share of seats that went to the first-timers. Progress made by non-urban students is small, but it's at least in the right direction. In the girls' share of IIT seats, the progress may even be deemed 'negative', since their number increased only marginally in spite of a near-doubling in the number of girls who applied for (and presumably, took) the JEE.

The JEE still has a long way to go before it can be held up as an ideal for the other entrance exams to emulate; right now, I would view it only as a deeply flawed exam with in-built biases against girls, first-timers and the rural and the poor.

IMHO, IITs should strive to convert JEE into an exam that fulfills -- at the least -- two primary requirements: (a) It should be a standardizing exam, in the sense that it should allow one to compare the relative levels of different school board exams, (b) it should be a standardized exam, in the sense that its results are less noisy and more predictable. Better yet, the IITs should merge it with AIEEE conducted by CBSE, and seek to make that unified exam conform to these two requirements.

IIT-ians show the way with tutoring

(Rajeshwari Sharma in Economic Times, May 14, 2006 Sunday)

In 2002, two IIT-ians got together, driven by a common dream of doing something worthwhile in the field of education, to give shape to a company, which was to become their full-time careers. Praveen Tyagi and Gaurav Mittal left extremely successful careers to script another success story of the IIT graduates.

Tyagi later persuaded his close friend Prasoon Kumar, who topped IITJEE in 1993 to join the group. Quest was created with the objective of creating a national brand in IITJEE coaching.

Tyagi, who did his B.Tech from IIT Roorkee and MS(CS) from University of Alabama, was always interested in the education sector unlike his other geeky friends. "I thoroughly enjoyed my teaching assistant assignments in my univ.

Even when I worked for companies like Oracle, HCL Technologies and Brienc, I knew someday I would take the plunge," says Tyagi, director, Quest. In fact, Tyagi has been the force behind the Power Coaching for IITJEE and has designed the complete programme.

Within a few months Mittal, another B.Tech from IIT Roorkee and MBA from IIM Lucknow, joined. "When Praveen got back, we wanted to do something in education. Praveen started out first and I soon joined.

In our case, both of us were top pros and not failed IAS candidates who generally opted for coaching business. We thought we could probably bring about a welcome change in the education delivery system. Once we launched, we were convinced that our dreams were not far-fetched," says Mittal.

Since its inception, Quest has trained about 3,500 students with over 100 successful in IIT and other top engineering colleges. With five coaching centres in Delhi, Quest created a new wave in IITJEE coaching with specially designed programmes for the New IITJEE pattern.

Curiously, Quest didn’t take the conventional advertising route. "We saw tutorial homes spending 25% of their revenues in ads, which is more than what the FMCG segment spends. We decided to cut costs on that give our students good value for money.

Our personal marketing team would visit parents and IIT and engineering aspirants and would make an entire presentation at home.

This is how we got our students. Then we went electronic. We also started a toll-free helpline for students," says Mittal.

Now, the men at Quest are looking at e-enabling the learning process so that they can bring down the costs further and widen the reach. They are also coming out with a biweekly e-magazine called topiit.com.

There are more such plans on the anvil. In their own words, "we in our little ways trying to make a difference in the education delivery system."

NEW JEE SYSTEM FACILITATES MORE STUDENTS TO QUALIFY IN THEIR FIRST ATTEMPT

(Press release by Governement of India on June 29, 2006)

New Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) system facilitates more students to qualify in their first attempt. It further shows that about 2000 students have qualified from towns and villages. According to highlights of JEE 2006, 2,99,288 candidates registered in JEE 2006, which was an increase of about 50% since last year. This increase could be attributed to the reforms made in the conduct of these examinations. Several candidates and their parents who came for counselling have reported that the single stage JEE-2006 system has drastically reduced the stress of the candidates. More significantly, 43.50% of the total candidates qualified in their first attempt, a quantum jump from 28.49% in JEE-2005. The age group of the candidates who qualified in their first attempt is between 16 to 19 years and the proportion of successful candidates belonging to small towns and villages has increased to 30.67%. As fee for female candidates was halved the participation of the female candidates increased from 29,291 in JEE-2005 to 58,997 in JEE-2006.

The information pertaining to JEE-2006 indicates that these reforms have in a large measure achieved their original objective of reducing the stress level of the students by factoring in the school results in the admission process and doing away with the screening test. This has also considerably reduced the dependence of students on coaching classes and made the process of entrance into these premier institutes more equitable, merit based and accessible to students from small towns and rural areas(See Annexure).

It may be recalled that the Human Resource Development Minister had convened a meeting of eminent educationists last year and initiated a dialogue for building a national consensus on issues related to reducing the high stress level among students appearing for Board and Entrance Examinations. As a result of these discussions a Special Task Force (STF) was constituted to evaluate the process of the IIT-JEE. The recommendations of this STF were deliberated upon by the Standing Committee of the IIT Council chaired by Prof. C. N. R. Rao and comprising of all the Directors of IITs. After due deliberations the standing Committee of IIT Council recommended certain reforms in JEE-2006 for the IIT for the year 2006. Some of the reforms introduced were:

· JEE to be a single objective type examination. The screening test was done away with.

· School results are to be factored into admission process for the IIT’s. Only those students who secure a first class or equivalent in the 10+2 examination were to be eligible for admission to the IITs.

· For SC/ST students, there was a relaxation of 5% of marks below the level of marks prescribed in the respective examination.

· A student can write JEE in the year he or she passes the 12th Board examination and/or in the following year.

· Those who join in any of the IITs will not be allowed to sit for the JEE again

· A one time exception was given to the students who appeared in their qualifying examination in the year 2005 or earlier.

…..

ANNEXURE
Statistical Information with regard to JEE-2006:

A few Highlights
· The single stage JEE-2006 system has drastically reduced the stress and mental agony of the candidates as compared to the two-stage system of JEE-2005 as indicated by several candidates and their parents who came for counselling, and Ex.IITians.

· The number of candidates qualified in their first attempt is 2,761, which is 43.50 per cent of the total qualified candidates. This proportion is significantly greater than the corresponding value (28.49 per cent) in JEE-2005. The high proportion of first timers reflects the success of the changed pattern of examination in JEE-2006 in getting more number of students who have been equally good performer in qualifying examination (10+2). Hence, the main purpose of introducing a new examination pattern emphasizing on the importance of school education has been successfully fulfilled. The design of an altogether new type of question paper, examining analytical ability, comprehension skills, and aptitude of the candidates has also a strong bearing on maintaining highest possible standards in JEE-2006.

· The age group of candidates qualified in first attempt is between 16 to 19 years.

· Distribution of qualified candidates among the cities, the towns, and the villages are:

Cities: 4400, Towns: 1328, and Villages: 615

The proportion of successful candidates belonging to towns and villages has also increased to 30.67 per cent as compared to 28.02 per cent in JEE-2005 while the percentage has decreased in case of cities from 71.98 per cent in JEE-2005 to 69.37 per cent in JEE-2006. The proportional increase in the percentage from smaller towns further emphasize the success of the new JEE system and indicate reduced dependence on coaching centers which the candidates from town and village have no access to.

· The application fee for female candidates was half (Rs.300/-) of the fees for male candidates (Rs.600/-). In this respect the new JEE system has also ensured a higher participation of female candidates as evident from the total number of registered female candidates of 58,997 in JEE-2006 as compared to 29,291 in JEE-2005. However, there is only marginal increase in successful female candidates as compared to JEE-2005.

· 2,99,288 candidates registered in JEE-2006 as compared to 1,98,059 in JEE-2005, which is an increase of about 51 per cent over the last year’s number of registered candidates. This increase was probably due to the changed pattern of examination as well as effect of ‘one time exception’ clause incorporated for the candidates who passed the qualifying examination in the year 2005 or before.

Paradigm shift at IIT: Younger, wider reach

(The Times of India - 30 June 2006)

NEW DELHI: Come new session and IITs would be younger and more representative of India with small towns/village students co-existing with city-breds in the elite institutions. The IITs' decision to introduce a new system of one stage Joint Entrance Examination has shown the desired results.

An analysis of this year's JEE shows a paradigm shift from the earlier years: the average age of successful candidates has come down, the number of students who cleared in the first attempt has gone up, the percentage of students from small towns and villages has increased and in all likelihood the primary objective of reducing the stress level of students has been achieved.

The number of students who qualified in the first attempt is 2,761 which is 43.5% of the total qualified candidates (6,343). In the earlier system of JEE which existed till 2005, only 28.49% of successful candidates were first timers. Also, the average age of first time successful candidates is between 16 to 19.

"It would mean that they would be engineers by 20-21 and would have age on their side to go for research," an HRD ministry official said.

"The single stage JEE-2006 system has drastically reduced the stress and mental agony of candidates as compared to the two-stage system of JEE-2005 as indicated by several candidates and their parents who came for counselling and ex-IITians," the ministry said.

The results also show how the new system has helped attract talent from small towns and villages. The proportion of successful candidates belonging to towns and villages increased to 30.67%, compared to 28.02% in JEE-2005.

The percentage of candidates from cities decreased from 71.98 in JEE-2005 to 69.37 in JEE-2006, it said. The proportional increase in the percentage from smaller towns emphasised the success of the new system and indicated reduced dependence on coaching centres, HRD officials said.

Since the application fee for female candidates was fixed at Rs 300, compared to Rs 600 for male candidates, it resulted in greater participation of females. Nearly 59,000 female candidates registered in JEE-2006 compared to 29,291 in JEE-2005.

There was also an increase of 51% over the last year's number of candidates. This year, 2,99,288 candidates registered compared to 1,98,059 last year.

The new JEE came into force last year after HRD minister Arjun Singh convened a meeting of educationists to build a national consensus on reducing the stress level among students.

Subsequently, a special task force was constituted to evaluate the process of JEE. Finally, the IIT council recommended reforms in the JEE.

The reforms included a single objective type examination and doing away with the screening test. The school results are factored into the admission process for IITs.

Only those who secure a first class or equivalent in the 10+2 examination were eligible for admission to IITs. A student can appear for JEE in the year she passes the 12th examination and the following year. Those who join any IIT would not be allowed to sit for JEE again.

Will they start telling the truth?

IITJEE 2005 Piyush Srivastava from Allahabad secured All India Rank 1
Brilliant Tutorials claimed that Piyush was its student, while Piyush gave interviews to media saying that he did not attend any coaching.

IITJEE 2006 Raghu Mahajan from Chandigarh secured All India Rank 1
Brilliant Tutorials again claimed that Raghu was its student, whereas Brilliants does not have its center in Chandigarh. Whether Raghu was a student of the correspondence course or he just filled up some form sent by Brilliants is not known.

IITJEE 2004 Sushant Sachdeva from Pune secured All India Rank 1
FIITJEE claimed that he was their student. Arun Roy of Bombay who sold his brand to Career Launcher claimed that Sushant was his student. The student himself said that he was student of another coaching in Pune.

This practise of confounding the public by not communicating facts is a result of extremely lucrative business of coaching and lack of any regulatory or consumer rights protection mechanism in India.

Since the big brands have the money, they can shout out loud by buying advertising space and even editorial sapce in newspapers like Times of India which charges for writing favorable news. FIITJEE, Brilliant Tutorials and Career Launcher are big brands. Thay have the financial muscle to shout louder than anybody. In most of the cases stated above, the original coaching center or the student in question clearly stated that the brands were lying but that issue got very little media space. Media publishes what it is paid to write. So most people did not see the real story, they went on to believe what was published in the paper.

The brands have their own reasons to claim such stuff. Arun Roy claimed that he used to teach at Yukti. Hence he is his student. FIITJEE says that he attended their test series and Brilliant says that he took their correspondence course.

This is the story with the top rankers. You can imagine how most of the results that coaching institutes publish are fake. Only the statement of the student in the media has some element of truth.

In any case, this rush of acquiring top rankers allows top ranking atudents to make monay. The top 10 rankers make anything between 3 lakhs to 35 lakhs depending how many coaching endorsements they sign. Varnit Jain, a student of IIT Delhi is pretty straight forward about it. He endorsed over 5 brands. Made a good amount of money.

The question is Whether shah Rukh really drives a Santro? He endorses it. So are some of these top rankers selling their ranks to make some money.

We as students and customers must understand that a lot of it is pure deceptive advertising without any substance.

Brilliants has a 30 year history of getting students by giving out cash prizes. They used t give out a lakh in early nineties to the topper. FIITJEE got made into a big brand just on the basis of such advertising. How much of it is really true? Even if it is not, are they wrong in doing it? If they are not wrong, we can at least be prudent enough to not get carried away by such nonsense.

Study hard and find the place that gives you maximum value.

Is this the end of Coaching Institutes?

The Screening paper (objective type test), which was the first phase of old IITJEE pattern used to have 28 to 30 questions per subject to solve in 60 minutes. That made it 2 minutes per question.All questions had just one answer correct with 3 marks given for the right answer and 1mark deducted for the wrong answer.

The IITJEE paper on April 9, 2006 had 12 questions carrying (3, -1) markseach, 8 questions carrying (5, -1) marks each, 12 questions carrying (5, -2)marks each and 8 questions carrying (6, 0) marks each. (x,y) means x marksgiven for the correct answer and y marks deducted for the wrong answer.IITJEE 2006 was expected to be different.

What the students faced was beyond their wildest imagination. The surprise element managed to achieve its objective. It is expected that only good students who have strong understanding of fundamentals will benefit. While the good students who hadstudied well for schools with a good understanding of the subjects enjoyedthe paper, students trained by coaching institutes faced a rude shock. The students of a coaching institute based in Punjabi Bagh in Delhi, which is run by IITians had a particularly tough time. They had been made tobelieve that their entry to IITs is almost sure as almost 70% students ofthat institute get thru to IITs. They had neglected their school workand focused on practising a particular type of long problems which were apart of the old pattern of IITJEE. Now, many of these exceptionally bright students (Coaching programs select the best in the country toreduce their risk) may not get thrru to IITs. They may also have a lessthan average performance in Class XII boards examinations.

Similarly the students who went to kota are feeling cheated. They had been made to practise for a particular kind of examination which never happened. The students in Kota are struck very badly. They spent over 1.5lakhs in kota over the last 2 years. They neglected their school to get thru to IITJEE. Now, they may have lost out on all accounts.The coaching classes of Kota and Delhi had become synonymous withback-door entry to IITJEE. Some believed that there was no need to look atschool studies as coaching program coaching program could put them thru to IITs.

The educationist community was particularly distressed. Principals and teachers saw the results and attendance of the best of their students drop against the on slaught of caoching. Finally, after muchhue and cry, the changes were made with the objective of reducing the clout of coaching on competitions and aligning the IITJEE with school studies.The attack was particularly directed towards kota which has become a hub forcoaching.The intake of good students is expected to drop. Kota, is assumed to befinished.

Kota has a history of mercurial rise and falls. It witnessedthe shutting down of JK Synthetics and then the mushrooming of Coaching. Now, the coaching game is all but over. Students from outside kota will not go to kota anymore. Similarly, the biggest loser in Delhi is expected to be the coaching centers of Punjabi Bagh and Kalu Sarai. The hype around coaching had attractedpeople from South India to open centers in Delhi. These institutes areshouting about faculty members whose knowledge about IITJEE has become obsolete.

Is it the end for Coaching? Experts believe that the hype of coaching will reduce drastically. This can be guaged from the fact that a lot of teachers in Kota have startedlooking for alternate careers. Since the competition is so tough (less than2% get thru), expert coaching would be required. However, it would have to be aligned to school work. It will be closer to small group tutoring. Someof the big names will get a tremendous hit on their business. The opportunity seen by MBA coaching institutes in IITJEE coaching would disappear. Some specialized Tutoring cum Coaching setups like QuestTutorials will benefit tremendously. Quest is run by IITians who saw theneed to align school studies to coaching 3 years back. According to Praveen Tyagi, Director Quest, "we are in luck as our program has become veryrelevant suddenly for the new ITTJEE pattern". The established coaching institutes will also make the required changes but such changes take over anyear to get implemented which will be too much time wasted for students.

IITJEE PATTERN CHANGE - An Analysis

The problem solving skills of IITJEE were meant to test the analytical abilities of the student. The objective was to come up with a completely new type of problem which the student would not have seen earlier. This would eliminate all those students who succeed in the system by remembering and reproducing. The emphasis was on application over knowledge.

However, over the years, the same novelty of IITJEE got institutionalized into a predictable pattern of difficult problems from a very large set of likely problem types.
Now, the student could completely do away with the fundamental aspects of science and get through IITJEE if he knew the way of solving problems. Hence a variety of coaching institutes mushroomed which just de-emphasised the need for study of Class XI - XII. The coaching institutes developed a methodology where they focused on getting the student to acquire each and every technique of problem solving by hard work and repetition.

While at one end this caused burn out among students to such an extent that they lost interest in studies after landing up in IITs. This system also defeated the very same purpose with which it was created.

Also, the craze for the IITs has been increasing every year making some people put everything at stake for the same. A gambler like mentality has been observed among students who perceive IITs to be the door to success. Hence, there were quite few students who kept attempting for IITs for 3-4 years.

In order to curb this abuse of IIT craze, the government has taken the measures, announced recently. These actions will not eliminate the need for coaching. This will align the IITs to school studies. Hence, the students will not look at IITs at the cost of school studies.

Changes in pattern of IITJEE - Reasons

IITJEE used to bring in emotions of adventure, challenge, competition, sport and excitement at one point in time. While the prepartion called for an in depth study of the subjects, which took time, there was never any doubt that simple hard work was never going to pay dividends. This was necessitaed by the toughness and the novelty of the IITJEE in earlier times. The students used to focus ontheir Class XI - XII and practice problem solving skills which helped in solving IITJEE problems. The IITJEE was known for throwing up problems which had never been seen before. It was seen as a system which would continue to succeed due to its ability to ask questions in a completely different light.
However, the increased premium on the IITJEE saw students getting crazy after the 'Indian Institute of Technology'. This craze is justified as, fortunately or otherwise, IITs are argueably the best eduction centers in the country. Students from all backgrounds started looking at IITs as the ultimate solution for solving the problem of security and career. Coaching institutions mushroomed and a search for breaking the IITJEE success formula started. With people ready to put in 3-4 years of their life, (like the pursuit of IAS) coaching institutes in Kota managed to create a system which undermined the whole purpose of IITJEE.
Similarly, coaching community in Kota found out that there is a limit to the type of problem solving methids which can be applied with in the given syllabus. So they started a method which just focused on learning the various methods and identifying the problem on which to apply these methods. This method undermined the conceptual understanding of the subjects (PCM), which was earlier seen as a precursor to being able to attempt such problems, to such an extent that students stopped going to schools completely. The schools in Kota, in there greed for money worked in connivance with the coachig institutes and students got attendance without attending the classes. During the day, students just focused on learning various methods of problem solving. Now there was no need to be smart or to have an aptitude and interes tin Science. One could crack IITJEE by simply being extremely hardworking. As a result, the performance of students who got thru IITJEE from Kota turned out to be very bad during the study at IITs. There was a distinct pattern of students showing incapability in living upto the high standards of scietific temperament required for excellence on a global scale. The teching community at IITs had been shouting for a long time to do somethign about the "Kota Syndrome". The governement and JAB (JEE advisory board) have taken exactly the steps required to deal with it. The competition has not got any less tough. If at all, it has got tougher. The exotic nature of the IITJEE used keep a lot of bright students away from the test. Now, with its alignment to Class XI- XII and an objective type pattern, more students are likely to take plunge and make it tougher.