KOLKATA: Bengal board students have cut a dismal figure in IIT-JEE (Advanced) 2017, with fewer than 100 from the West Bengal Higher Secondary Council having earned themselves a place in IITs. This pathetic figure is despite the silver lining of a 60% jump over last year in the number of students from Bengal — across all Plus II boards — who qualified for the prestigious entrance test.
Last year, 1,326 students from Bengal qualified for IIT-JEE (A), of whom 287 made the final cut. This year, the figure shot up to 2,129, of whom 301 found a place in the IITs.
The Bengal board’s poor show comes in spite of several measures taken by the higher education department to revamp the syllabus and introduce textbook-oriented learning. Last year,…
