Postpone JEE Main, NEET exams further, students urge yet again
The coronavirus pandemic has eaten up into almost everything. Education too is facing a number of challenges. Heeding to demands of lakhs of students, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, earlier this month, had decided to postpone key entrance examinations -- Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Social media was full of requests from students to defer the entrances, and it still is. Now, the students are demanding the exam dates be pushed beyond September.
While JEE Main is scheduled to take place from September 1-September 6, NEET will be conducted on September 13. JEE Advanced is to take place on September 27. Fearing the ongoing situation with COVID-19 cases soaring in the country, students have come out again with the same demand.
"How can NEET-JEE exams be conducted when single day cases have breached 50,000. NEEt, JEE should be postponed till situation normalizes," a student said.
"Both the exams should be postponed beyond September because we can't take risk lives. How can we give an exam in such fear," another student asked.
Another student said 2020 should be declared a zero academic year. "They should declare 2020 Zero Academic Year instead of postponing again and again."
"We want the exams to be conducted after December 2020 because again they may postpone it for a month but that will not be right. That's not the solution," a student wrote.
Meanwhile, HRD Minister Nishank, who is at the helm of education affairs in the country, has been emphasizing on safety of students and ensuring quality education.
Earlier, JEE Main was scheduled to take place between July 19 and July 23 while the NEET exam was slated for July 26. JEE Main provides admission to NITs, IITs, and CFTIs while the NEET-UG examination is for admission to MBBS/BDS courses. Over 15 lakh students had applied for NEET 2020 while nearly 9 lakh for JEE Main exams.
