Class 12 marks won’t be a criterion for IIT admissions this year

The Centre on July 17 announced that marks obtained in class 12 board examination this year will not be a criterion for admission into the premium engineering institutions- Indian Institutes of Technology.

For admissions to IITs, apart from qualifying the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced), the eligibility criteria every year also includes either a minimum score of 75 per cent marks in class XII Board exams or rank among the top 20 percentile in their qualifying examinations.

However, the latter condition this year has been removed, Union Human Resources Development Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank said .

“Due to the partial cancellation of class XII exams by several Boards, Joint Admission Board (JAB) has decided to relax the eligibility criterion for JEE (Advanced), 2020 qualified candidates, this time,” he tweeted.

“Qualified candidates who have passed class XII examinations will now be eligible for admissions irrespective of marks obtained,” wrote the minister.

This year, examinations for 12 class XII papers could not be held due to Covid 19 pandemic and marks for these papers were assigned to students based on their performance in previous papers.

Earlier this month, the government had announced new dates for Joint Entrance Exam, (JEE Main), the first stage for admission into IITs and entrance for most other engineering colleges in the country, between September 1 and 6.

It had also said that JEE (Advanced), will now be held on September 27.