The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced for admissions to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will be conducted on July 3, 2021, Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank announced on Thursday. Also, this year, the eligibility criterion of a minimum score of 75 per cent aggregate marks in Class 12 board exams has been scrapped, the minister said.
Following the recent announcement of dates of the JEE Main 2021 by the Union Education Ministry, students preparing for admissions to IITs were waiting for the JEE Advanced exam date. On Thursday, the minister announced via a live video message, "After careful consideration, it has been decided that JEE Advanced will be held on July 3, 2021. The eligibility criteria of scoring 75 per cent marks has been waived for the ease of students."
The exam, which is generally conducted in May or June every year, has been deferred to July this year, in order to give students extra time to prepare. The minister said, "We have scheduled the exam in July so that students get sufficient time to study and prepare amidst Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. Also, in order to ease the academic burden of students, we have scrapped the eligibility criteria of scoring 75 per cent aggregate marks in Class 12 exam. This will enable more students to appear for the entrance exam and seek admissions to IITs."
Also, this year, IIT Kharagpur will conduct the JEE Advanced, the minister said. IIT Kharagpur will conduct the exam under the guidance of the Joint Admission Board (JAB).
On December 16, 2020, the Union Education Minister had announced that the JEE Main, for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes, would be conducted four times in 2021, instead of the earlier practice of once a year. Also, for the first time, JEE Main which was thus far only conducted in English, would be conducted in 13 different Indian languages.
