No IIT entrance test in Pakistan in 2017

New Delhi: The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are gearing up to hold their first-ever entrance test in foreign countries beginning next year.

The plan is to hold the test in Singapore, the UAE and SAARC countries, for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

However, Pakistan has been excluded from the list of SAARC nations where the entrance test will be held in 2017, the Deccan Chronicle reported.

The reason behind the IITs' move to hold entrance test in foreign locations is to select foreign students for undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that Pakistan has been excluded from the list due to various issues including that of students procuring visas for study in India.

“The entrance tests to the IITs abroad have been held till now only to admit Indian nationals. This is for the first time that it has been planned to admit foreign students through tests held abroad. It is aimed that the plan would be operationalised from the JEE/GATE exams to be conducted in 2017,” sources said, as per the daily.

It may be noted that additional seats have been allocated for foreign students and the number of seats available to Indians would remain the same.