NEET 2021 news: Education and Health ministries review COVID-19 situation, may postpone exam

As lakhs of students across the country are waiting for the announcement of NEET 2021 entrance exam date, the officials from the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health recently held a meeting to review the prevailing COVID-19 situation in the country to conduct the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2021.

According to sources, the meeting was held few days ago and it is expected that NEET 2021 entrance exam will be postponed. It is to be noted that NEET 2021 is scheduled to be held on August 1 but the National Testing Agency (NTA) is yet to release the application forms.

The NTA normally gives a window of about 60 days to students between application form and exam due to the logistic reasons of allowing exam centers, arrangement of seats, admit card roll-out, changes in application etc.

It may be recalled that the medical entrance exam was held in September in 2020. It is expected that the officials may decide to posptone NEET 2021 till September. 

Around 14 lakh students register every year for NEET exams which are held for admission in different medical colleges across the countyr. In 2020, the number of exam centres was increased by NTA from 2,546 in 2019 to 3,843.

On the other hand, there is no clarity over the entrance exam date of JEE Main 2021 too. According to sources, Union Ministry of Education is planning to hold JEE Main 2021 and NEET 2021 entrance exams between July and August. It is expected that the NTA would release the schedule of both JEE Main 2021 and NEET 2021 entrance exams within the next two to three days.

Notably, CBSE Class 12 Board Exam 2021 were cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic. The CBSE has now opted for a different marking system to finalise the CBSE Class 12 Board Exam 2021 results. It is learnt that the CBSE will declare the Class 12 results on July 31.