JEE Advanced test on mobile phones mooted

committee has suggested the JEE Advanced test — the final round of the gruelling process to qualify for the country’s premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) — be conducted through mobile phones.

The proposal came from a committee drawn up to reform the Advanced test.

At a preliminary stage currently, it was tabled in a recent meeting of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) and will be taken up by the IIT council, the apex decision-making body for the institutes.

Students vying for engineering colleges need to clear the JEE Mains test, before qualifying for the JEE Advanced.

Officials introduced the option to take the Mains test online and are looking to extend it to the Advanced exam, in the interest of making logistics and evaluations easier.

More than 1.3 million take the Mains test — of them less than 10% digitally at present. Of these two lakh qualify to take the Advanced test.

The suggestion identified mobile phones as a possible cata lyst for the digital push, since they have higher penetration in rural India compared to comput ers.

According to a senior official the suggestion also included the formation of a panel to focus on the development and testing of the online platform for JEE Advanced before it is adopted “There are many issues that have to be looked into before implementing it,” said the offi cial, who is a member of the com mittee.