After the postponement of the national and other state board exams, students have been urging to postpone Joint Entrance Examination – Main (JEE Main) 2021 April and May sessions too. JEE Main exam for April is scheduled to held from April 27 to April 30, while the May session exam is scheduled to take place from May 24 to May 28.
Twitter has been trending with #jeemain2021postpone and #postponejee2021. The National Testing Agency (NTA) and the Education Ministry decided to hold JEE Main 2021 4 times this year so that candidates get multiple attempts to score well in the test. This decision was taken as students were affected by COVID-19 last year as the academic session suffered and students could not prepare very well.
So far, two sessions of JEE Main 2021 have been held smoothly. The result of these sessions have been declared too.
However, India is going through the worst phase of COVID-19 pandemic and schools in many of the states have been closed. Holding JEE Main 2021 in April and May will be a challenge for NTA. Whatever decision will be taken in this regard, NTA will announce the same via an official notice on nta.ac.in.
Postponing the exam can be a possibility. However, cancelling any one of the remaining attempts will be an unfair move. Many students have yet not attempted the Mains and are waiting to appear in April and May attempt. If any one of the attempts is cancelled it will be unfair to them.
Moreover, the paper 2a and 2b have been held only once, that is in the February session. Paper 2a and 2b will be held again in the last attempt, i.e. in May. 2021 Therefore like the B.Tech candidates, the B.Arch and B.Plan candidates have got only one chance till now in JEE Mains.
Hence, there are high chances that NTA might not cancel any attempt. However, both the attempt can be postponed to be held in the mid of end of August. This is because NEET 2021 is scheduled for 01 August. CBSE 12th boards can be held in June if the situation is better by then and CBSE decides to go with it.
Thus the June to August month is already lined up with class 12 boards and NEET 2021 exam. Therefore NTA will have to hold the April and May session in August after NEET or in September / October, given that both the attempts are postponed.
If the exams are postponed candidates will get more preparation time and will be safe at home. Last year too the JEE Main second attempt was postponed to be held on September.
However, this will again lead to a delay in the upcoming session and JEE Main 2022 will be delayed than its usual timeline. Moreover, unlike last year, this year NTA will have to hold 2 delayed attempts. This will lead to a delay of the timeline by 1 more month, as a gap of at least one month is to be kept between 2 exams.
As of now NTA has not announced postponement if any attempt. The admit cards for the April attempt are expected to be rolled out soon.
For any updates on JEE Main 2021 candidates must only rely on the official websites nta.ac.in and jeemain.nta.nic.in.
