JEE Main 2023: The Education Ministry has revised the eligibility criteria for admission to NITs, IIITs, and CFTIs.

JEE Main 2023: In a relief to students aspiring to appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main, the Ministry of Education (MoE) on Tuesday decided that apart from the eligibility criteria of scoring 75 percent and above in the class 12 exam, students from the top 20 percentile of all boards will be eligible to seek admission based on their JEE Main score.

As the JEE Advanced already has the same criterion, this part-relaxation will also allow students to compete for seats across NIT.

According to the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) JEE Main information brochure, in addition to the candidate’s All India Rank (AIR) in the national entrance test for engineering admissions, aspirants must also score 75 percent or higher in class 12 to be eligible for admission. The qualifying aggregate score for SC/ST candidates was declared to be 65% or higher.

Previously, the same criterion was used, but it was suspended for three years due to the Covid pandemic. This was due to a lack of consistency in evaluation practices undertaken by various boards – both state and national – as a result of the pandemic conditions. The original eligibility criteria were reinstated with the restoration of normalcy in the board exam evaluation.

However, this sparked opposition from prospective candidates and their parents. Many people took to Twitter to demand that the exam be postponed and that this criterion be removed. A petition was filed in the Bombay High Court to postpone the JEE-Main; the petition also requested that the 75 percent eligibility criterion be relaxed.