IIT doesn’t attract the students from Kerala as much as they attract the students from the other states. However, there’s an IIT in the state, not many students are interested in studying from the premier institution. As per the statistics, only 10% of the students from each school in the state want to study from IIT. The number of students who attend IIT coaching classes is even less than 10%, report the educationalists from Kerala coaching centers who provide training to clear the competitive exams.
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In 2016, as few as 1.6 % students from the state cracked JEE-Advanced 2016. 600 students from Kerala qualified the exam out of the total 36,566 students who cleared the exam.
Arvind Gupta, Director of FITJEE said that there has been a negligible rise in the number of students who attend their coaching classes in order to get through the IIT entrance exams. Even though the parents are encouraging, the children don’t feel the inclination to go for coaching classes, Arvind added.
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Ever since the establishment of IIT-Palakkad, state authorities have been planning to spread awareness about the prominence of IITs in Kerala. The institute has also come up with schemes to work in collaboration with schools and colleges in the state to attract more students. However, P B Sunil Kumar, professor-in-charge, IIT-Palakkad, informed that due to lack of full-time faculty they couldn't go ahead with the plan.
IIT coaching centers have also been trying to attract students towards the colleges by organizing interactive sessions in various schools as well as conducting career counseling and seminars for students as young as 11 years old.
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Head of the department, IIT-JEE coaching, TIME, Kochi, Bhuvana Anilkumar said that the presence of an IIT itself is enough to inspire students to study from the institute. He also said that IIT Palakkad will have to make efforts in this direction in order to achieve results in the next 5 to 6 years.