Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Wednesday announced that the National Testing Agency (NTA) will be conducting Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains exams four times a year starting from February 23 to 26, 2021.

"We have examined the suggestions received from students and various quarters and it has been decided that JEE-Mains will be held in four sessions in February, March, April and May," the minister tweeted.

Examination results will be declared after 4 to 5 days from the last date of exam, the education minister added.

"The move will ensure that students don't miss out on opportunities due to clash of exams or due to the COVID-19 situation at present," he further added.

Minister also said students will be given a choice to answer 75 questions (25 each in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) out of 90 (30 each in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics). Merit list/ranking will be prepared based on best score of candidate.

Moreover, in view of New Education Policy, JEE(Mains) 2021 exam to be held in 13 languages -Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu & Urdu. The exams will be held in Computer-Based test mode while the exam for B.Arch in offline mode, said the Education Minister.

The announcement came after the education minister in an online interaction with students last week, had said that the government is considering the possibility of holding the JEE three or four times a year and a proposal is being evaluated on reducing the number of questions that students can attempt in JEE (Main) 2021.

The Education Minister has already clarified that there will be no change in the syllabus for medical entrance exam NEET or engineering entrance exam JEE-Main next year.

Competitive exams like JEE and NEET were also postponed twice this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.