MHRD announces entrance dates; JEE Mains to be held twice in 2019

All the exams will be computer-based except for NEET, which will be conducted in pen-and-paper mode.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on Tuesday announced the schedule for various entrance examinations till May 2019 to be conducted by the newly-established National Testing Agency (NTA).

It announced the schedule for UGC-NET, JEE-Main I & II, CMAT & GPAT, and NEET-UG.

All these exams will be computer-based except for NEET, which will be conducted in pen-and-paper mode as before. This mode of writing exam was kept unchanged at the request of the Health Ministry.

"The change in the NEET exam pattern (as against the statement made on July 7, 2018) -- which will now be a single exam in pen-and-paper mode and in the same number of languages as has been conducted last year -- is on the request of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which wanted the same pattern as last year's to be maintained," the HRD Ministry said in its statement.

While declaring the establishment of NTA, the Ministry had in July said that all these exams will be conducted online.

As per the schedule announced on Tuesday, the UGC-NET will be conducted on several days during December 9-23, 2018; JEE-Main I on days between January 6 and 20, 2019, while JEE-Main II will be held between April 6 and 20, 2019.

The CPAT-GMAT entrance, earlier conducted by the All India Council for Technical Education, will be conducted by the NTA now on January 28 and NEET-Undergraduate on May 5 next year.

The Ministry said that through NTA it has also established 2,697 Test Practice Centres (TPCs) in schools and engineering colleges for candidates to practice and familiarise themselves with the pattern of the exams.

These centres will be available to the candidates on Sundays and Saturdays starting from September 1 and will be free of charge.

"The TPCs will have a downloaded Computer Based Test (CBT) which will be similar to the actual test to be conducted on the exam day.

"The practice tests will help the candidates familiarise themselves with logging into the system, going through the detailed instructions regarding the test, using the mouse or numeric keyboard on screen (virtual) for attempting each question, scrolling down to the next question, navigating between questions, reviewing and editing their options and submit questions," the statement read.

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