AICTE to make JEE Main mandatory for all technical institutions

The Centre has decided to make the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main a pan-India test for all technical institutes from 2018. According to sources, the common entrance test will be conducted more than once in a year. The test, pending clearance, will be on the lines of the national eligibility-cum-entrance exam (NEET) for entry into medical colleges, sources in the HRD ministry said.

The top-rankers from JEE Main are eligible to write the JEE Advanced for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). In the new system, students aspiring for the IITs will have to pass the nationwide common entrance test with high marks and take the JEE Advanced.

It is, however, up to the institutes to decide whether they want to admit students only on the basis of the scores obtained by them in JEE Main or give weightage to the class XII examinations.  All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will also come up with a regulation for holding an ‘exit test’ for final year B Tech students from 2018. The test will be conducted to evaluate their employability as well as the quality and standards of their institutes.