SIXTY-FIVE YEARS OF JEE: THE MAKING OF INDIA'S MOST COMPETITIVE EXAM

A new government-sponsored programme in Nashik, “Prakash Wata,” has been launched to provide free IIT-JEE coaching for Scheduled Tribe students, reserving half the seats for girls — a move underscoring how access and gender equity remain urgent sites of reform in the JEE landscape.

- TDG NETWORK

IIT Kharagpur's Hijli Detention Camp Building, 1951

In the decade following India's independence, national leaders like Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned world-class technical institutes to drive India's development.

The first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was established at Kharagpur in 1951 on the site of a former British detention camp, soon followed by IITs in Bombay (1958), Madras (1959), Kanpur (1959) and Delhi (1961). To ensure a meritocratic and uniform admissions process to these elite institutions, a common entrance examination was conceived. Initially called the “Common Entrance Exam” (CEE), this test was first administered around 1960-61, coinciding with the passage of the IIT Act of 1961. From the start, the exam aimed to select the brightest students from across India, regardless of regional or socioeconomic background, reflecting an ideal of meritocracy in post-independence India's education policy.

When the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) was first conducted in 1960, it was a modest affair by today's standards. The test included not only the core subjects of physics, chemistry, and mathematics, but also an English language papera reflection of the academic priorities of that era. Only a few thousand candidates appeared in those early years (around 5,000 candidates sat for the first JEE in 1960), competing for a few hundred seats at the nascent IITs. Admissions before the JEE were based on school results and interviews at IIT Kharagpur, but as more IITs opened, a joint exam was seen as a fair, efficient way to identify talent nationwide. Nehru and other planners believed these institutes and their entrance exam would cultivate an elite cadre of engineers to lead India's scientific and industrial progress.