(Image source from: Hansindia.com)

IIT Entrance Exam To Go Online From 2018 : JAB:- To make logistics and evaluations easier, the Joint Admission Board (JAB) has decided on Sunday that the entrance examination for the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will go completely online from 2018.

The decision was taken by JAB, at a meeting in Chennai. The JAB is the policy-making body on IIT admissions. At the designated centres, students will take up the examination in the online mode. Instead of using pen and paper, they need to answer the questions on a computer.

Currently, optical mark reading (OMR) sheets are used which need to be filled using pens or pencils and are evaluated by machines. In a statement, Director, IIT-Madras, and Chairman JAB 2017, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi said, “It has been decided that the JEE (Advanced) will be conducted online 2018 onwards. Further information regarding the examination will be provided by the JAB in due course.”

Earlier, the option of taking the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains online was introduced by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Students take up the JEE-Mains entrance examination for admission to engineering courses offered across the country and for admission to the prestigious IITs and NITs, a qualifying exam for JEE-Advanced is required.

“In order to make logistics and evaluations easier it was decided today that the JEE-Advanced should be made online,” a JAB member said. “The concept was being discussed for many years, but it was necessary to have adequate infrastructure to conduct the exam online,” the member added.

In the last year, more than 13 lakh students took the JEE-Mains, with less than 10% of them going online. To write the JEE (Advanced), around 2.2 lakh students were eligible.

SUPRAJA