It can be seen that on a regular basis we are experiencing hikes in COVID-19 cases throughout the country, keeping this in notice the top educationists expect that the entrance exam authorities might not prioritize exams over health and are demanding to cancel the upcoming National Entrance Exams.

The educationists want the authorities to use different methods of assessments to grant admission for this year. They want National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), Joint Entrance Examinations Main (JEE Main), and Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) to be cancelled for this year.

NEET 2020 has been scheduled to be conducted on July 26, 2020. It is the one and only entrance examination held in India for granting medical admission to undergraduate courses which has got around 16.84 lakhs students registered for this year’s examination.

While, JEE Mains 2020 has been scheduled to be conducted from July 18 to July 23, 2020 for granting admissions into 23 IITs, 31 NITs and 23 GFTIs.

Taking on this matter, Dr. R. Murali, Tamil Nadu Secretary, Save Higher Education Movement has said that in this critical time when the nation is fighting against Coronavirus it is quite difficult for the students to manage their studies in these circumstances. The whole schedule has been raptured due to this pandemic and has affected the lifestyle and preparations for most of the aspiring students.

He also added that under this situation it will be highly unsafe to hold these Entrance Examinations as it might affect the health of the students.

He thus urges the authorities to scrap the exams for this year for the sake of the students’ health.

Educationist, V Jayendran Mani, President of theTirunelveli Matriculation Schools’ Association has said that conducting exams even after the COVID-19 scenario improves will affect the mental health of the students. 

She advised that the authorities should consider the board exam scores to grant admission to engineering and medical courses for this year.

Earlier NTA has released notification regarding NEET 2020, while on May 5, 2020 Union Education Minister, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ has announced JEE Mains to be conducted from July 18 to July 23, 2020.