New Delhi: The row between government and IITs over entrance test was resolved on Wednesday with a compromise agreement being reached over holding the common exams from next year. Under the new format, an advance test will be conducted and the elite educational institutes would admit students having top 20 percents from various boards.

“We have come out with a formula where screening criteria will be set wherein top 20 percentile students from every board will qualify to get entrance in IIT,” said Deependra Hooda, a member of the IIT Council, after the meeting.

This will be implemented from 2013, he said.

The compromise was reached at a meeting of IIT Council, the highest decision-making body having representatives from government and Directors of all the 16 of these institutes.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, who is the head of the Council, skipped the crucial meeting which was then chaired by M N Sharma, Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Madras.

According to the agreement, admission to the IITs from 2013 would be based only on rank achieved in the advance test subject to the condition that selected candidates are in the top 20 percentile of successful candidates of their Boards.

The government had earlier proposed a common entrance which was rejected by IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur and some others were also likely to follow suit.

The compromise formula is in line with the decision of the IIT Joint Admission Board (JAB), comprising Directors of IITs, which met on last Saturday.

JAB has sought a suitable time gap between the main and the advanced tests so that the results of mains are available before the advanced and only the top 1,50,000 candidates (including all categories) in the mains appear in the advance test.

IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur had rejected the proposed format on the ground that the test was “academically unsound and procedurally untenable”.