No weightage but 75% marks in Class XII must to appear in JEE from 2017

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New Delhi: The Human Resource Development Ministry on Thursday announced that the aspirants for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for premier engineering institutes from 2017 onwards will be required to score 75 percent marks in their Class 12 board exams.

However, Class XII marks will not be a factor for determining rankings in the JEE for admissions to engineering undergraduate courses from next year.

To qualify for appearing in exam, students need to have at least 75 percent marks or be in top 20 percentile in Class XII examination. SC, ST students should have 65 percent marks.

The present system of giving 40 percent weightage for the Class 12 marks in calculating the ranks in the main round of JEE has also been done away with, it said but all other JEE systems shall remain unchanged.

HRD Ministry officials said the decision was taken by the Ministry after a committee set up by IIT Council submitted recommendations on changes in the JEE pattern, which were put in the public domain for wide consultations.