Entrance test to IITs to completely go online from 2018

NEW DELHI: Entrance to the premier engineering colleges-Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will completely go online from 2018. In a meeting held at Indian Institute of Technology Madras on Sunday, the Joint Admission Board (JAB), it was decided that from next year the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) will be conducted online.

Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Chairman, Joint Admission Board (JAB) 2017, stated, "The Apex Body for conduct of JEE (Advanced), at its meeting today (20.8.2017), has decided that JEE (Advanced) will be conducted in online mode from 2018 onwards. Further information regarding the examination will be provided by the JAB in due course."

Around 2.2 lakh students were eligible to write the JEE (Advanced) this year, with the quota increasing by 20,000 over 2016. The number of students eligible to take the test climbed from 1.5 lakh in 2015 to 2 lakh in 2016 due to an increase in IIT seats. As many as 1.72 lakh students registered for the ‘Advanced’ round of the entrance examination, of which 1.59 lakh — up from 1.47 lakh in 2016 — took the test for the 10,000-plus seats across the 23 IITs.

"This was was already being debated over last many years. It is good that it would start from next year," said a member of JAB committee on the basis of anonymity.

"Results can now be declared faster. It will be logistically easier and we have adequate infrastructure available to conduct the exams online," told Ramamurthi to ET.