Academics welcome Assamese language option in JEE Main 2021

GUWAHATI: Academics, students and engineering aspirants welcomed the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) decision to conduct the JEE (Main) in 10 more languages, including Assamese, from 2021.
Drawing from the National Education Policy (NEP), the JEE (Main) 2021 will now be conducted for the first time in Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu, in addition to Hindi, Gujarati and English, in which the exams were held earlier.
The NTA also decided to hold the upcoming JEE (Main) in four sessions — February, March, April and May — instead of two in January and April.
The latest NTA move will help students preferring Assamese in Assam and Bengali in Tripura, academics said.
However, despite being the second-most spoken language in Assam, students aspiring to write in Bengali in the state, won’t benefit.
In Assam, students can write the exam in Hindi, Assamese and English, while in Tripura aspirants will have the option to answer in Bengali, apart from English and Hindi.
“Introducing more languages is definitely a positive move, but we will also have to invest heavily to build up resources to enable coaching in vernacular languages. Study materials for all-India competitive exams such as JEE and NEET are scanty in local languages of the northeast, since coaching institutes in Assam rely heavily on faculty members and study materials sourced from outside the region, especially from north India,” said Sanjeev Prasad, CEO at Flux Academy, a Guwahati-based coaching institute for JEE aspirants.
He said lots of awareness needs to be created in vast rural areas of the state, where Assamese medium is still preferred over English by a majority of students. “Till now, we have seen that awareness on exams such as JEE lacks in the rural areas outside towns and cities where Assamese medium is the most preferred. From a tender age, such students will have to be encouraged to pursue the all-India level competitive exam. Because the new move is mostly for their benefit,” Prasad added.
There have been instances where even rank holders in science, who secured top positions in state boards, could not get a seat in the centrally funded engineering colleges by qualifying JEE (Main).
Jonali Das, principal of Modern English School, Kahilipara in the city, said, “Students, who have the potential to excel in boards in Assamese medium will get an exposure if JEE (Main) is held in Assamese. Their chance to qualify JEE (Main) will brighten.”
She added that the local and state-level coaching institutions, which can adapt to teaching in Assamese, may flourish across the state after the NTA’s decision.