Students intending to sit for joint entrance examination (JEE) 2006 will burn their midnight oil a lot less, though experts are not liking it one bit.

The JEE syllabus will be overhauled next year, and as an interim arrangement, a drastically-trimmed syllabus will be followed in the current academic session.

A host of topics have been removed from several subjects in the stopgap curricula, much to the chagrin of experts, who think these are crucial for higher studies.

For instance, would-be doctors will not have to read about tapeworms, which cause infections in hundreds of people in Bengal every year.

Wannabe researchers also need not know about guinea pigs, though several experiments related to medicine are first conducted on these animals. The earlier syllabus had details about the anatomy of guinea pigs, their behaviour and their importance in medical research.

In mathematics, chapters on law of indices, measurement of trigonometrical angles, properties of triangles, trigonometrical ratio of compound angles and many others have been omitted. Students intending to take up computer science, electrical or mechanical engineering need to have a thorough grasp of these topics.

But the most incredible of all changes, experts feel, is the omission of fishery sciences, though students of fishery colleges in Bengal are chosen from among JEE qualifiers.

Earlier, students willing to study fishery sciences had to know in detail the varieties of fish, their nature and the diseases affecting them.

?It?s ridiculous. They (JEE board) are selecting students for a subject without bothering to check whether they are competent enough to study it,? said Rajatabha Choudhury, who runs a coaching centre for JEE aspirants.

Agreed Amiya Maiti, who runs AK Maiti Educational Foundation in Entally: ?There does not seem to be any logic behind this interim syllabus.?

B.K. Bhattacharya, member-secretary of the JEE board, said: ?A specially-appointed committee had trimmed the syllabus for this year. I cannot comment on the decision, which, I guess, had been taken collectively.?