Review meeting convened on pending JEE and NEET
Review meeting convened on pending JEE and NEET
As lakhs of students across the country wait for the announcement of the dates for the revised schedule of the JEE Main 2021 and NEET 2021 entrance exams, the National Testing Agency (NTA) under the Ministry of Education (MoE) is likely to make an announcement in this regard by the end of this week.
MoE sources said a review meeting was convened on Monday on the issue of pending JEE and NEET.
“ The present timing could be conducive for the conduct of entrance tests before the country is hit by a probable third wave of the corona pandemic, the participants deliberated,” sources said adding the JEE Main pending exams will be held be July end and August beginning and the JEE Advanced is likely to be scheduled for August end or September beginning.
The NEET UG exam conducted for admission in MBBS, BDS, BAMS, BSMS, BUMS, and BHMS courses will also be announced simultaneously to end the speculations and anxiety within the aspirants, parents, institutions and all other stakeholders related to the professional courses.
Sources said Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal was scheduled to interact with candidates and parents over the subject last week on social media but he ended up by conveying only a recorded message on the suggestions of MoE officials.
“ There was nothing concrete and there could have been a deluge of queries on JEE and NEET which the Ministry was not prepared to answer. This could have further raised the anxiety of the candidates,” said the sources.
While the entrance schedule is yet to be notified, the admission brochure of the IIT entrance - JEE Advanced — has already been released by this year’s nodal institute –IIT Kharagpur.
This year’s JEE and NEET were postponed twice due to the prevailing pandemic situation in the country. The JEE Advanced was earlier scheduled to be held on July 3 but it too was postponed.
The decision comes in the wake of a MoE directive to offer the relaxation as several students had claimed that they could not appear for the IIT entrance exam last year due to the lockdown imposed by the state governments due to pandemic.
As per the IIT brochure released on Sunday while most rules remain as it is, some eligibility and admission rules keeping the pandemic in mind have been tweaked.
Along with the JEE Main 2021 qualifying candidates, those who were eligible to appear for JEE Advanced 2020 but failed to appear in the exam will now be allowed to appear for the IIT entrance.
“ This is a one-time measure valid only for JEE-Advance 2021. These candidates will be considered in addition to and not as part of the total number of candidates who would qualify from JEE-Mains 2021 for appearing in JEE-Adv 2021,” as per the brochure.
Till last year, an IIT aspirant had to score 75 percent or more in the class 12 board exams as mandatory eligibility for the JEE-Advance, but for this year the criteria has been relaxed considering the complete scrapping of the class 12 Board exams this year.
However, candidates should have appeared and cleared their class 12 exams and should be among the top 2.5 lakh successful candidates including all categories in JEE-Mains 2021, read the brochure.
Another change pertains to female quota seats across IITs and there will be change in existing uniform quota of supernumerary seats allotted to female candidates across IITs but for this academic session the number of supernumerary seats in various programs will be decided by individual IITs.
