WBJEE 2020 to be held on February 2; exam date advanced to increase number of students

Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said the board needs to conduct the WBJEE earlier so that the results could be declared much before the other states and national level exams.

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WBJEE 2020 to be conducted on February 2. (Representational Image)

West Bengal Joint Entrance Board (WBJEEB) has decided to conduct the engineering entrance examination on February 2, following a communication from the state government to advance the test. The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) was earlier scheduled to be held on April 19, 2020. The board has sent the proposal to the state education ministry for approval.

Earlier, Education Minister Partha Chatterjee proposed to advance the entrance exam at a meeting with stakeholders on August 20. Highlighting the apathetic conditions of engineering colleges in the state, which starts its current session with half of the students who enrolled, Partha Chatterjee said, “The board needs to conduct the WBJEE earlier so that the results can be declared earlier than other states and national-level entrance exams.”

This year, a total of 22,175 seats went vacant as compared to 16,000 last year. There are overall 32,700 seats on offer in various engineering colleges in West Bengal. According to the minister, it will help to arrest the migration of students thus increasing students intake which was just 12,000 in the current academic year 2019-20. “If the board publishes the results earlier and commences the counselling process much before the publication of other entrance exam results like JEE Main, then the students who took admissions in a reputed college will hardly migrate. The process may help the state colleges including the reputed varsities like Jadavpur University to increase the students’ intake,” the minister was quoted by an official present in the meeting.

In the current academic year, around 60 per cent seats in state’s engineering colleges went vacant. According to the registrar office, around 10,525 students took admission in engineering courses this year after three phases of the counselling process, which closed on July 20.

In the Jadavpur University, over 20 per cent of the engineering seats went vacant after the closure of the admission process on August 6. According to official data, out of the 1,273 seats offered by the varsity, 261 seats are not filled.

The WBJEEB chairman, Malayendu Saha said, “After receiving communication from the government, we are planning to conduct the examination in February, much before the board examinations on March 12, 2019.”

“The board has proposed to conduct the examinations on February 2, the first Sunday of this month,” the chairman told indianexpress.com.