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IIT JEE – Establishment & History Of IIT’s In India

Joint Entrance Examination – Advanced (JEE-Advanced), formerly the Indian Institutes of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE), is an academic examination held annually in India. It is conducted by one of the seven zonal IITs (IIT Roorkee, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, and IIT Guwahati) under guidance of the Joint Admission Board (JAB). It is the sole prerequisite for admission in the Indian Institutes of Technology. Other universities like the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISERs), and the Indian Institute of Science also uses the score obtained in JEE Advanced as the basis for admission. Any student who was admitted to IIT cannot appear for the JEE-Advanced, but the same is not the case with IISc, IISER, RGIPT and other institutes, because these institutes only use JEE-Advanced scores as a criterion for admission. The examination is organised each year by one of the IIT, on a round robin rotation pattern. It has a very low qualification rate (about 9,369 in 479,651 in 2012).  The qualification rate of the JEE-Advanced in 2017 was approximately 0.92% (about 11,000 out of 1,200,000 who applied for JEE Main).

In 2013 the examination, originally called the IIT-JEE, was renamed as JEE (Advanced), and the AIEEE was renamed JEE (Main).From 2017, IIT began conducting JEE internationally for the admission of foreign residents.

History of IIT Establishment:
The first institute of IIT, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, started in 1951. In its initial few years (1951-1954), students were admitted on the basis of their academic results followed by an Interview in several centers across the country. From 1955-1959, admissions for the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur were conducted via a national examination held only for IIT Kharagpur (other institutes of the IIT had not started by then). Academic disciplines were allotted to the students through interviews and counseling sessions held at Kharagpur.

The IIT-JEE, initially called the Common Entrance Exam (CEE), was first conducted in 1961, coinciding with the 1961 IIT Act. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru pioneered the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology to provide trained technical personnel of international class to the nation who would act as leaders in technology for the newly born independent India. The institutions were to be designed with the necessary dynamism, flexibility of organization, and capacity to adapt in the light of expanding knowledge and changes in the socio-economic requirements of modern society. In May 1950, the first in the series was established in Kharagpur at the site of the Hijli Detention Camp, where the British had incarcerated political prisoners, the institution was named the ‘Indian Institute of Technology’ before its formal inauguration on August 18, 1951. Within a decade of the launch of the first IIT, four more were set up: IIT Bombay (1958), IIT Madras (1959), IIT Kanpur (1959), and IIT Delhi (1961). Decades later, the sixth IIT was established in Guwahati (1994). India’s first technical institute, set up in 1847 and known as the Thomson College of Engineering and subsequently the University of Roorkee, was ordained as the seventh IIT in September 2001. In the year 2008, six new IITs were started: IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Patna, IIT Rajasthan, and IIT Ropar. This was followed by two more IITs in 2009: IIT Indore and IIT Mandi. In 2012, the Institute of Technology, BHU was designated the sixteenth IIT. IIT Palakkad and IIT Tirupati came into existence in 2015, and in 2016 five more IITs; IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, IIT Bhilai, IIT Goa, IIT Jammu, and IIT Dharwad were started. There were several changes made in the exam in 2018. The Joint Admission Board (JAB) decided to conduct the entire exam online from 2018 since it reduces the chances of paper leak and makes logistics and evaluation easier. It said that the online exam will neutralize the problem of misprinting. The Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and Government of India have entrusted the responsibility of conducting Joint Entrance Examination JEE (Main) to the NTA from 2019 onwards.

During the early years, the IITs benefited in varying degrees from material assistance and academic cooperation from developed countries — IIT Bombay from the Soviet Union, IIT Madras from Germany, IIT Kanpur from the United States, and IIT Delhi from the United Kingdom. Over the years IITs have created world class educational platforms dynamically sustained through internationally recognized research based on excellent infrastructural facilities. The faculty and alumni of IITs have made huge impact in all sectors of society, both in India and abroad. The institutes are globally recognized as centres of academic excellence, andare reputed for the outstanding caliber of the students graduating from them.

Participating Institutes
Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are institutions of national importance established through Acts of Parliament for fostering excellence in education. Over the years, IITs have created a world class educational platform that is dynamically sustained through quality teaching and internationally acclaimed research with excellent infrastructure and the best available minds. The faculty and alumni of IITs occupy key positions in academia and industry, both in India and abroad, and continue to make a considerable impact in all sections of the Society.

The primary objectives of IITs are as follows:

  •  To create an environment that encourages freedom of thought and pursuit of
    excellence, and inculcates the necessary vision and self-discipline to achieve excellence.
  •  To build a solid foundation of scientific and technical knowledge and to prepare
    competent and motivated engineers and scientists.
  •  To kindle an entrepreneurial spirit among the students.
  •  To prepare students to become outstanding professionals and contribute to nation-
    building.

At present, there are twenty three IITs located in the country.

Institute Name Place Abbreviation
Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University) Varanasi IIT (BHU)
Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai Bhilai IITBhilai
Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar IITBBS
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Mumbai IITB
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi New Delhi IITD
Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad IIT (ISM)
Indian Institute of Technology Dharwad Dharwad IITDharwad
Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar Gandhinagar IITGN
Indian Institute of Technology Goa Goa IITGoa
Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati Guwahati IITG
Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad Hyderabad IITH
Indian Institute of Technology Indore Indore IITI
Indian Institute of Technology Jammu Jammu IITJammu
Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur Jodhpur IITJ
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Kanpur IITK
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Kharagpur IITKgp
Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai IITM
Indian Institute of Technology Mandi Mandi IITMandi
Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad Palakkad IITPKD
Indian Institute of Technology Patna Patna IITP
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee Roorkee IITR
Indian Institute of Technology Ropar Ropar IITRPR
Indian Institute of Technology Tirupati Tirupati IITTP

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