Indore: There is a possibility that Joint entrance examination (JEE) Mains can be taken in multiple regional languages from 2021, if everything goes as planned by the Human Resource Development Ministry.
The issue of allowing candidates to take the exam in regional languages gained traction after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday raised objections why JEE Main will be conducted in Gujarati and “not in other regional languages”.
HRD Secretary R Subrahmanyan stated that the ministry will be giving preference to the regional languages of the states with the most number of applicants in the last five years.
He stated that since there can be technical limitations in conducting the examination in multiple languages these problems need to be addressed first. He added that since JEE Main is held in a computer-based mode there are limitations but the ministry is committed to conducting the examination in multiple languages, but the process is expected to take time.
The HRD Office informed that the National Testing Agency, which is the conducting JEE Main examination will be developing the software in the regional languages.
Initially, those languages of those states from where the maximum candidates appear would be included first. At present maximum number of candidates appear from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana combined with 1.6 lakh followed by Maharashtra which had close to 1.1 lakh applications for JEE Main examinations in April 2019. Less than 20,000 students appeared for the JEE Main entrance examination from West Bengal. So, Telugu and Marathi would be the first two languages in which the exam can be taken.
The National Testing Agency will be conducting the JEE Main 2020 examination in English and Hindi but examination centres in Gujarat, Daman, and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli will have questions in Hindi, English and Gujarati.
Giving reason for inclusion of Gujarati in the examination the NTA in a recently released statement available on the website has stated that none of the states had approached the agency to provide the question paper in the respective regional languages except Gujarat so they have included Gujarati.
When the CBSE conducted the JEE Main examinations, the questions were available in Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati languages until Urdu and Marathi were withdrawn in 2016.
