Ministry of Education has provided clarification on Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank’s statements on the matter of reduction of the syllabus of the NEET 2021 and JEE Main 2021 exams today. After the minister’s seminar yesterday, there were widespread speculations as to whether the syllabus for the Joint Entrance Exam 2021 & National Eligibility cum Entrance Test 2021 are going to be changed since the CBSE and other boards have already reduced the syllabus of Class 12.
It has been confirmed that the syllabus for both the exams shall remain unchanged for 2021. However, the exam pattern has been modified significantly to allow students who studied the reduced syllabus of CBSE to fare well in the exam. This has been clarified by the Ministry via a press release issued by the Ministry of Education through the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
Further, the Education Minister has tweeted about relaxations on the eligibility criteria for admissions through JEE Main exam for the next academic year i.e. 2021-2022.

Confusion over JEE, NEET Syllabus 2021
Yesterday, there was a offline-online seminar by the Education Minister Dr RP Nishank and students of Kendriya Vidyalaya. The video is published on Youtube where the Minister can be seen speaking about the syllabus of the JEE Main 2021 and NEET 2021. The Minister said that there are going to be more questions in the question paper of JEE Main 2021 compared to previous years, and there were some mixed statements that were construed to imply that syllabus for NEET, JEE 2021 are revised and will be as per reduced CBSE syllabus.
However to put out the confusion, Ministry published a press release today.

Exam Pattern Changed
However to mitigate the effects of reduced syllabus, the exam pattern for JEE, NEET are changed. For JEE Main 2021, the new exam pattern is out: There are going to be optional questions. Compared to previous years, there are going to be 90 questions in all out of which, candidates have to answer 75 questions (25 questions in each of the subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics). Previously, there was no choice in the exam and candidates answered all of the 75 questions (25 questions in each of the subjects of Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics).
By the same token, the exam pattern of NEET shall also have optional questions.
Further in an attempt to ensure that students are crystal clear about the syllabus, NTA published a pdf file with the final syllabus of JEE Main 2021 today at jeemain.nta.nic.in. Comparing it with last year’s syllabus shows that there are no changes in the syllabi.
While candidates can refer to the official information brochure & syllabus of JEE Main 2021, the same for NEET 2021 is not yet released by the National Testing Agency. Candidates are advised to refer only to the official website & the information brochure of respective exams.
75 Percent Criteria Finally Removed!
Education Minister also confirmed in a latest tweet that the eligibility criteria for JEE Main for the next academic year 2021-2022 are going to have relaxations. As per the latest tweet, the criteria for obtaining at least 75% marks or being in top 20 percentile in the Class 12 exam is going to be removed for the purpose of NITs, IIITs, CFTIs admissions. Candidates are advised to refer to the respective official websites for the latest updates of JEE Main 2021 & NEET 2021.