The sudden announcement of the JEE Main 2023 exam to be held in January has worried many. As students demand a postponement till April-May, experts and educators believe that the aspirants are in a tight spot. "Students are in stress, and this is serious. Only a couple of days ago three students have died by suicide in Kota due to stress," says advocate-activist Anubha Sahai.
Anubha points out that students are so worried that they want to challenge the NTA's (National Testing Agency, the body which conducts JEE Main) decision in the Supreme Court. "They approached me to take the legal proceedings forward, but vacation will be starting for the apex court soon. So, the students might file pleas in their respective state high courts," she said.
Writing in support of the students, the advocate submitted representations to the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) and the Ministry of Education on Friday, December 16, to consider deferring the exam by two-three months. "The CUET (Common University Entrance Test) schedule was released recently and the exam will be held in May. Then why can't the same be done for JEE? There should be uniformity for all entrance exams," Anubha stated.
She further explains that since entrance exams like CLAT (Common Law Entrance Test) and NDA (National Defence Academy) 2023 exam are also scheduled to be held in January, this is worrying the students even more. Apart from those, state board exams in Bihar, Assam and Maharashtra are also scheduled to start in February, just after JEE Main ends. Moreover, the practical exams for CBSE, ICSE and the state boards are likely to be held in January too. "Therefore, there are a lot of clashes in the dates," Anubha says.
Other experts agree. "NTA must consider the students' requests for postponement. The students are not mentally prepared to appear for the exams before their board exams are finished. They also have a vast syllabus to cover, which is difficult in such a short time. Parents and students are raising this issue in counselling sessions with me. If the exams were to happen in January, it should have been notified in November," said Ashwin R, career guidance expert and analyst.
Yasasvi Santosh, Director of Spark Academy echoed the sentiment and noted that students also complained about the exam duration. "The January session is going to be held for a week. Students are worried about how they will be allotted batches as the normalisation will have a bearing on their scores. This year, many students failed to achieve good ranks despite having a good raw score, due to the normalisation," he explained.
Another career consultant and analyst, Jayprakash Gandhi, pointed out that due to delays caused by the pandemic, the students of the previous year are yet to take admission in several places. "In such a situation, if JEE, followed by its counselling procedure, is conducted this early, it will be difficult for the NTA, the government and the colleges, to accommodate two batches of students in a short interval of time. There will be problems during placements too, as companies will not hire students from a college within only a few months gap," he said.
Re-introducing the 75 per cent eligibility criterion will also be troublesome for the students, says Anubha. "There are many repeater students who will be unable to write the exam if this criterion is in place as they have not scored 75 per cent in their board exams. Either the criterion should be removed or should be reduced to 60 per cent eligibility," she stated.
The JEE aspirants are complaining about yet another issue. This time, "NTA didn't even open a correction window! If anything goes wrong in the form or if there is a server error, it wouldn't get resolved and our whole future gets affected," said Harshvardhan Mishra, a student from Delhi.
Considering all these problems, the experts admit that a postponement would be a relief to the students. "The current Class XII batch has undergone hurdles due to COVID-19. It has been only 8-9 months since regularisation has begun. Earlier there were 4 JEE exams, which have now been reduced to two. So, an exam in April-May would be helpful to the students," said Jayprakash Gandhi. "If the exam takes place in January, students should think of it as their first attempt and give their best, and prepare better for the April session," added Yasasvi Santosh.
"Even the syllabus for this batch of students was changed. And they attended online classes when they were in Class XI. So, in my opinion, it would be better if they are allowed more time, preferably a couple of months," said Pratyus Acharya, a teacher from St Xavier's High School, Odisha.
