JEE-Mains 2nd Phase sees 21% drop in BE/BTech registration

This year, the April session had to be postponed because of the lockdown due to Covid-19, it is scheduled to take place between September 1 and 6

Registrations for engineering (BE/BTech) courses in the second phase of Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains in September have dipped by 21% from the first phase held in January 2020. Experts feel this dip could be due to the pandemic; with Covid-19 cases on the rise across the country, students fear participating in an examination held on such a large scale as JEE.

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Since 2019, JEE Mains exam has been held in two phases, in January and April. This year, the April session had to be postponed because of the lockdown due to Covid-19. The exam is now scheduled to take place between September 1 and 6.

While 9.21 lakh engineering aspirants had registered for the exam in the first phase this year, 7.46 lakh students registered in the second phase.

JEE Mains is an annual national-level entrance exam for engineering, architecture and planning aspirants. The overall registrations for JEE Mains paper 2 too have dipped by almost 9%, reveal figures made public by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body conducting the examination. While 9.34 lakh students had registered for JEE Mains Paper 1 in January, the registration figures stand at 8.58 lakh for JEE Mains paper 2, which will be held at 600 centres across India in September.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court rejected a plea by aspirants of undergraduate professional courses who had requested postponement of both JEE and the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical aspirants.

“One of the reasons for this dip in registrations could be that students who have already appeared for the first phase and have scored well don’t want to appear for the paper in the second phase to better their scores,” said NTA director general Vineet Joshi. He added that the dip in registrations is less likely due to the pandemic as a majority of them were completed before the virus hit the country.

Experts, however, feel that anxiety among the student community is on the rise and their parents may have advised them against risking their lives in an attempt to better their scores.

“Last year, students who had scored well in the first phase of JEE-Mains had appeared for the second phase for practice before they appear for JEE-Advanced. This year due to the pandemic, many students might not want to take the chance,” said Sudhanshu Sinhal, MD Sinhal Classes, a coaching institute.

While JEE Mains is scheduled to take place in the first week of September, JEE Advanced will take place on September 27. NEET-UG will be conducted on September 13 this year.