Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has announced that the third session of the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) has been postponed due to the Covid-19 situation in India. Nishank announced the postponement in a tweet on Sunday.
“Given the current Covid-19 situation, I have advised the National Testing Agency to postpone the JEE (Main) – 2021 April Session. I would like to reiterate that the safety of our students and their academic career are the Education Ministry's and my prime concerns right now,” the Union Minister announced.
In another tweet, Nishank said he would announce the JEE (Main) – 2021 April session dates later and at least 15 days before the examination. The JEE (Main) session was originally scheduled to be held from April 27 to April 30. The JEE entrance exam scores will help students to get into IITs and NITs among other engineering colleges.
Earlier, the Centre postponed the upcoming National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for postgraduate students due to raging Covid-19 cases in India. “In light of the surge in Covid-19 cases, the Government of India has decided to postpone NEET PG 2021 exam which was scheduled to be held on April 18. The decision has been taken considering the wellbeing of our young medical students in mind,” Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan tweeted earlier this week. He added that the Centre would decide on fresh dates after taking stock of the situation.
On Thursday, several doctors approached the Supreme Court seeking postponement of the NEET exams. The petitioners pointed out that the candidates appearing in the exam are doctors treating Covid-19 patients daily.
The NEET exam is for doctors seeking admission in MS and MD courses. The exam was to be held in January but postponed due to the pandemic.
NEET’s postponement comes a day after the CBSE cancelled board exams for Class 10 students and postpone the same for Class 12 students. Many students and parents requested the Centre to either cancel or postpone the exams considering the Covid-19 surge.
