20 days to go, students wait to hear "JEE Mains postponed" and HRD Min says otherwise

These few months have been hard on us as it was. The students have been off-school for over three months. Amid this, exams were supposed to happen, students were supposed to make life-changing decisions. This is especially applicable to class 10th and 12th students. But then the pandemic happened. Although the CBSE and ICSE exams stand cancelled, the entrance exams such as JEE Mains and NEET UG are not.

 What is the status of the decision on JEE Mains exams cancellation?

It is still unclear what the HRD Ministry and NTA are talking about. Students have raved on about their stress, depression, inability to study and travel-transport problems. But even amid this, on Saturday, the HRD Minister Pokhriyal said that exams will happen on the scheduled date only.

He also said, (via Amar Ujala), that the situation is still not worse enough that exams can't be conducted. But things may change, i.e. JEE Mains and NEET may be postponed, depending on the situations.

He had requested CBSE to cancel the board exams and not JEE Mains and NEET UG? That does not add up. And that is why his feed is flooded with students and parents raising questions.

What are students saying?

Students want both JEE Mains and NEET UG exams to be postponed. They have been trending hashtags such as PostponeJEEMains, HealthOverExams, NoExamsinCovid etc. Since the CTET exams were cancelled recently, the trend has garnered more attention.

The total COVID-19 cases are over 5 lakh. We have been getting almost 20k new cases every day. If the exams happen and even one student is Covid-19 affected, we risk community transmission. So, Mr Pokhriyal needs to revisit his decision.

Further, in his G20 summit, he launched a helpline number for students to deal with the exam stress. To this students have responded that the exams are the reason they are anxious and stressed. He's not saying anything the matter. This is not appreciable.

But as of now, the exam will happen on the scheduled date i.e July 18-23.

Read More: How to prepare now that only one month is left? Here is a subject-wise guide along with a timetable.