Kolkata: It's good news for engineering aspirants from the vernacular medium. The Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main) will now be offered in 11 regional languages from January 2021. The ministry of the Human Resource Development has directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to prepare for conducting the test in at least 11 languages including Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
JEE (Main), the national level competitive test for admission to various undergraduate engineering and architectural courses — mainly in National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institute of Information Technology and other government-funded technical institutes — at present is offered in English, Hindi and Gujarati only.
This test is also the eligibility test for the JEE (Advanced), the admission test for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Earlier conducted by the CBSE, the computer-based test has now been passed on to NTA. Recently, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while questioning the inclusion of Gujarati, demanded inclusion of other regional languages. NTA clarified it has been offering the test in Gujarati following a request from the state.
While the department of higher education of West Bengal wrote to NTA for inclusion of Bengali in the JEE (Main) 2020 question paper, a senior official of the ministry said the test will be offered in all the 11 languages from 2021.
Hailing the move, Firhad Hakim said: "Our youth wing led by Abhishek Banerjee has organised movement demanding that JEE be held in Bengali. They had even held a rally at the Gandhi Statue on Mayo Road pressing for the demand. I am happy that our movement has bore fruits. Many aspiring students from Bengal will be benefitted."