JEE Main and NEET exams to be conducted twice a year, says government

Students will get two chances in a year to write two highly competitive exams that select candidates for India’s top engineering and medical colleges, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said on Saturday.

JEE Main, the screening test for Indian Institutes of Technology, will be conducted twice a year -- in January and April. National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the exam to select students for medical and dental colleges, will be held in February and May 2019.

JEE Main and NEET get lakhs of candidates each year. More than 13.36 lakh students registered for NEET 2018, competing for 60,000 seats in MBBS and BDS institutes across India. More than 11.5 lakh candidates wrote the JEE Main exam this year.

Javadekar also announced that a National Testing Agency has been set up to conduct "computer-based" exams for NEET, JEE and UGC NET for recruiting college lecturers.