The Education Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank has recently informed that the Joint Entrance Examination, JEE Main from next year onwards would be conducted in more regional languages of India. The Joint Admission Board has decided this in line with New National Education Policy, NEP 2020. Currently the engineering entrance exam, JEE Main is conducted only in English, Hindi and Gujarati languages. The Joint Admission Board (JAB) for 23 IITs on Thursday decided that the computer-based JEE-Main for admission to engineering colleges across the country will be conducted in more regional languages from next year.

Dr Pokhariyal through his Twitter account has informed the students that the decision would further the ideologies of the new education policy brought by the government. In India, the only exam to be conducted in 11 languages was the medical entrance exam, NEET. Dr Pokhariyal stated, “The examination will also be conducted in regional languages where entry to State Engineering Colleges is decided based on an examination (conducted in regional language). State language of States who admit students based on the #JEE(Main) will also be included under this.” He further said that the decision was taken after Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out that top-scoring countries in PISA examination use mother tongue as a medium of instruction. The Education Minister also added that due to this move the students who could not score earlier due to language barrier would be able to score more and also it is expected that the number of participations would see an increase.

The education minister also said that government does not intend to impose any language on any state. "We are in favour of strengthening 22 Indian languages and we want to promote all these languages," he had added. According to National Testing Agency (NTA) officials, the regional languages in which the test will be offered are yet to be decided. "The exam will be offered in those regional languages in which the states are already conducting their local entrance exams for engineering. More languages will be added following whichever states are part of the JEE-Main and wants their language to be included in the test," an official said.

Last year, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while questioning the inclusion of Gujarati as a medium of writing the exam, demanded inclusion of other regional languages. The Ministry of Education had then clarified it has been offering the test in Gujarati following a request from the state and said that the test will be offered in all the 11 languages from 2021. The ministry also asked NTA to explore the possibility of offering the competitive exams in as many languages as possible.

In the previous update regarding the JEE exam, Joint Admission Board had allowed the COVID patients who missed JEE Advanced 2020 exam to reappear for IIT JEE 2021 exam. Students who had registered for the JEE Advanced examination this year, but were absent in the exam are allowed to reappear in JEE Advanced 2021 examination. This official statement was shared by IIT Delhi Director, V.Ramgopal Rao on his official Twitter handle. He wrote, “Final JAB decision related to giving an additional chance to students who could not take JEE Advanced 2020.”