The Joint Admission Board (JAB) has put out a statement that the Joint Entrance Exams (JEE) will go online from next year, that is 2018. This decision has been taken to make the evaluation process easier and faster. The JEE exams are the entrance exams taken by students to get an admission into the prestigious IITs and NITs. Students aspiring to do so will initially need to take the JEE Mains exam and if they clear it, then they get a chance to appear for the JEE advanced exam. The JEE Mains exam is conducted online and now the JAB has decided to make the JEE Advanced an online exam too.

Although the students have an option for going for an online test for their JEE Mains, many do not opt for it, instead of going for a pen and paper test. Seeing that the students are reluctant to take the online test, the JAB has come up with a plan to provide a three-day training program for the students appearing for the online test. Taking these tests online has many benefits. There is a less chance of any paper leaks, easier to evaluate than a pen and paper test, faster correction and eradication of the concept of misprinting (that is printing the questions wrong). Misprinting is a major problem with the pen and paper test. If a question is wrongly printed, students automatically get marks for that question, irrespective of whether they answer it right or wrong. At present, the system follows the use of an OMR sheet for marking the answers but the JAB has been facing problems with corrections. Not marking your answers properly, not darkening the circles completely, darkening more than one option etc are few of the problems faced while correcting the papers. Due to this, many students get their marks reduced.  This is one of the main reasons why the JAB wants to take these exams online. There will be no such issues with the online exams.

The situation of taking the JEE Advanced exams online was being discussed by the committee for a long time but they found it difficult to implement it then. Almost 13 lakh students take up the JEE Mains exam and around 2 lakh students qualify for JEE Advanced every year. As the number of students taking up these exams is huge, there were concerns on the number of online test centers that were needed to host these exams. Luckily, the JAB has found a way to bypass all these problems and has decided that the JEE Advanced exams will be conducted online from 2018.

Last Updated on July 12, 2023 by Himani Rawat