On Friday, November 27, Union education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said competitive and class X and XII board exams exams in 2021 would be conducted after wider consultations with students, parents and teachers in view of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pokhriyal said, “Conducting examinations is no less than a challenge. Despite the uncertainty due to Covid-19 pandemic, it is crucial to conduct board examinations as well as entrance examinations for admission to higher educational institutions. I will have an interaction with parents, students and teachers in this regard and exams will only be conducted based on outcome of the interaction.”

The minister said he would interact with students online on December 3 to discuss the upcoming Board and competitive exams.

On November 26, he had tweeted, “A campaign would be launched to seek views from students, parents and teachers on how and when to conduct the exams next year.”

Educational institutions across the country were shut down in March in view of the pandemic. Competitive exams such as JEE and NEET-UG were postponed twice this year while the board exams were cancelled midway and students were promoted based on alternative assessment methods.

There have been demands for postponement of the board exams to May in view of the continued closure of schools and teaching-learning activities being completely online.

The Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)-Main for admission to engineering colleges across the country is likely to be held in February instead of January, according to officials.

The rising number of COVID-19 cases and engineering admission for this year still being underway are among the reasons behind authorities contemplating the move.

The JEE-Main, which is the national-level competitive test for admission to various undergraduate engineering and architecture courses, is conducted twice a year January and April. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, the April exam was postponed twice this year and conducted in September.

Source: PTI

Also read: JEE Main, NEET 2021 syllabus might be revised: Pokhriyal