The National Testing Agency (NTA) will now conduct the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) main exam for admission to IITs and other national educational institutions only twice a year.

Although there is a demand from the students to give an opportunity to the NTA which was conducted four times during the time of Coronavirus, it is expected to conduct this exam only twice.

The JEE Main examination schedules to be conducted next year for the academic year 2023-24 will be released. NTA is also in touch with the respective states to avoid any problem with the board exams. The board exams and JEE exams are dates are being closely checked so as to avoid a clash and hence expected to be conducted at different intervals instead of on the same dates.

Earlier, JEE Main was conducted only once a year, but it was increased to twice a year from 2019. The exam is held twice a year in the months of January and April, considering that students lose an academic year due to a single phase. However, the mains were conducted in four phases in 2021 due to disruption to the examinations caused by COVID19. Students are given the opportunity to participate in any of these four courses and get admissions in national educational institutes. Even though it was conducted twice in 2022, there was a lot of delay and the confusion was caused by earlier schedules to conduct them during board exams.

Moreover, after Corona, regular classes started quite late that year, so the students requested that they be given an opportunity to write the exam again. However, the exams which were to be held in the months of January and April were postponed to June and July and the release of the results was also delayed, so the admissions process was also delayed this year.

Now, In order to continue the academic year without any hindrance, the NTA hopes to conduct the entrance exams in January and April only twice a year and move forward according to the academic calendar.

Accordingly, teachers of various coaching institutes say that NTA is working to ensure that the schedules of intermediate boards and CBSE exams are not disturbed.

It is worth mentioning here that more than ten lakh candidates register for JEE exams every year. The top 2.50 lakh meritorious candidates who score qualifying marks in these exams are selected for JEE Advanced. If we look at the statistics of the last five years, in 2019 a maximum of 12.37 lakh candidates have registered for these exams.