All disabled students to get extra time in JEE-Advanced this year

From this year, all students with disabilities appearing for the Joint Entrance Examination- JEE (Advanced) will be given extra 20 minutes per hour for completing their tests.

Until the last year, only those students with disabilities who used to write with the help of scribes were given the extra/compensatory time.

This will be the first time that disabled students in all categories will get more time to write their exams.

As per the new rules for the JEE-Advanced test that includes two papers of three hours each, all students with more than 40% disabilities will get two extra hours to complete the papers.

JEE Advanced is an annual examination that is conducted for admission in the prestigious IITs- Indian Institutes of Technology. Students who are among the top 2.45 lakh candidates in JEE (Main) are eligible for the JEE Advanced. The exams are conducted by one of the seven IITs every year in a rotational manner.

I am happy to know that more disabled students will now get extra time to complete their exams. When I did my engineering, there was no such facility available and I use to suffer because of that. Due to my condition, completing the exams within the standard time was a huge challenge and I use to do only 70%. Hopefully more aspiring students with cerebral palsy will now be able to reach for their dreams. Ashwin Karthik, first Computer Engineer of India with Cerebral Palsy

This year the JEE (Advanced) examination is to be held on 27 May and is being organized by IIT Roorkee.

The extra time is being given to the disabled students as per the provisions of the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016. RPWD Act provides for changes in the rules for ‘Persons with Disabilities’ in regards to education and jobs, so as to provide more opportunities to them.

While the new rule has been welcomed by many it has also raised some questions about fair practices.

Vidya Y is the Co-Founder & Trustee of Vision Empower, dedicated to making STEM education accessible to students with visual impairments. She feels that extra time is useful for those who have sight impairments, coordination issues or difficulty in writing.

“Although the move sounds inclusive, it does give an unfair advantage to students who have no issues in writing their papers. For students with lower body disability, writing a test is not the same as is for a blind student who is dependent on scribe.

As per the rules, in case a student has provided false information regarding disability, the student’s admission can be cancelled later and he or she can be booked for fraud.

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