JNU's entrance exams to be online this year, registrations to start Friday

In a first, the Jawaharlal Nehru University will be conducting its entrance exams online this year, which will be held in May and the registration process will start on March 15, officials said Wednesday.

The entrance exams will comprise of multiple choice questions (MCQs), they said.

The online registration process for JNU Entrance Examination, 2019-20 will begin online from March 15 and Natioinal Testing Agency or NTA will upload the e-prospectus. The registration process will close on April 15, while students will have the option of correcting their application forms from April 17 to April 19, university officials said.

The admit cards will be available for download from the NTA website from April 22 while the entrance exam will be held from May 27 to May 30, they said.

The seat intake for this academic year is 3,383 in all the programmes of which 1,043 are for the MPhil and PhD courses.

JNU would be adopting digitalization in its entrance examination process in line with major academic institutions and central universities such as IIT, BHU, Delhi University, Central Universities Common Entrance Test (CUCET), the officials said.

In order to increase its outreach among the student fraternity, JNU entrance examination would be conducted in 127 cities across India, which is a two-and-a-half fold increase from past years' number of cities, the officials said.

The computer-based test would comprise multiple choice questions (MCQs) in all disciplines and would not require any special knowledge of computers or technical proficiency, they said.

The MCQ format will bring complete objectivity in the examination process, making the system further transparent, the university said.

NTA has excellent mechanisms of even displaying the correct answers of the question papers post examination that can be reviewed by all student applicants, the date for which is yet to be announced, the officials said.

The names of candidates shortlisted for viva-voce for MPhil and PhD will be tentatively announced by June 10, while the viva-voce exams will be held between June 26 and July 3.

The merit lists for courses where viva voce is not prescribed will be published by June 18, while for those where viva-voce is prescribed will be published by July 8, the university said.

For the benefit of all students, NTA would make accessible test practice centres where all applicants would be able to familiarise themselves with the computer based test, the officials said.

The students' union has called the online entrance exam a 'scam' and has been opposing it.