E-Paper
‘Govt should listen to students’ Mann ki Baat’: Rahul Gandhi on postponement of JEE, NEET
The National Testing Agency has announced that JEE-Main will be held from September 1 to 6 and NEET for undergraduate courses on September 13.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday urged the government to take into account concerns of students who have been demanding postponement of Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
“Today lakhs of students are saying something. The GOI must listen to the Students Ke Mann Ki Baat about NEET, JEE exams and arrive at an acceptable solution,” Gandhi said in a tweet.
His tweet comes a day after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia requested the Centre to cancel the JEE and NEET.
“The Central government is playing with the lives of millions of students in the name of JEE-NEET. My request to the Centre is to cancel both these exams immediately and make an alternative arrangement for admission this year. In this time of unprecedented crisis, an unprecedented step will lead to a solution,” Sisodia tweeted.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) has announced that JEE-Main will be held from September 1 to 6 and NEET for undergraduate courses on September 13.
There has been no official word from the education ministry on postponement of these exams. A person aware of the developments, however, said there was no such decision at the moment. The reluctance to defer the exam is centered around the government’s view that it would be difficult to get the 2020-21 academic year moving without the exam.
On August 17, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking the postponement of the NEET and JEE scheduled to be held in September 2020. The decision came on a petition filed on August 7 by 11 JEE/NEET aspirants seeking postponement of the exams in view of Covid-19 pandemic.
A three-judge bench headed by justice Arun Mishra said “life has to go on” despite the outbreak of the viral disease and the court cannot put the career of students in jeopardy by interfering with the decision of the NTA to hold the examinations.
