In a move aimed at attracting students from the United States to India’s premier engineering institutions, Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) entrance examination for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is likely to be held in San Francisco for the first time in 2020.
V Ramgopal Rao, the Director of IIT-Delhi, when contacted, said that the move was driven by IIT alumni in the US.
“There are lots of Indians in the Bay area in San Francisco. When one of our delegations visited the US, the Indians there, including IIT alumni, expressed their wish to get a chance to let their children study in the IITs. So a decision has been taken to include San Francisco in the list of centres,” said director Rao.
“We are hoping that, apart from the diaspora, other students in the US will also try to join the IITs,” he added.
Though Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Colombo ( Sri Lanka), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Dubai(UAE), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Singapore were among foreign centres where the IIT JEE(Advanced) 2019 exam was held in 2019, it has never been conducted in the US.
“There is a clear tech link between India and the United States and the IIT system has been receiving requests, including from the Silicon Valley area, regarding the possibility of such a test. So, a decision has been taken that a centre will be set up in San Francisco for the 2020 JEE (Advanced) test, which is likely to be held in the month of May,” said one of the senior officials familiar with the development on condition of anonymity.
Unlike Indian students, foreign students won’t have to undergo a screening test in the JEE mains exam. Foreign students can directly take the advanced test for admission to the undergraduate course. Seats allotted to foreign nationals are supernumerary with a cap of 10 per cent of the total number of seats in every course.
The move to take the entrance exam to the US also comes at a time when the Central government is making efforts to get foreign students to study in India.