The IITs appear to have kept in abeyance the government’s decision to introduce engineering courses in regional languages from 2021.

Education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday announced that the Joint Entrance Examination-Advanced would be held on July 3 and that the eligibility requirement of 75 per cent marks in Class XII board exams would be relaxed, but did not make any mention of the language options of the test or whether courses would be offered in the respective mother tongues of states.

Two officials of IIT Kharagpur told The Telegraph that the exam, to select students for the IITs, would be held as usual in Hindi and English. They said the regional language option for the exam and the courses could be possible from 2022.

Last November, the Press Information Bureau had said in a media release that a meeting chaired by Pokhriyal had taken the decision to introduce engineering courses in regional languages at the IITs and the NITs from the coming academic year.

A blueprint proposed by an RSS-affiliated organisation for such an arrangement had been accepted by the education ministry. According to the proposal, students taking the entrance exam in the regional languages would be ranked separately and each IIT would offer a limited number of seats in the mother tongue of the state where the institute is located, apart from English.

But when the matter was discussed with IIT directors, many expressed concerns such as lack of study materials in regional languages, teachers’ preparedness, possible lack of job opportunities for students opting for courses in the mother tongue and a probable dent to the international advantage of IIT graduates mainly because of English being the medium of instruction, according to sources.

A task force was set up, headed by higher education secretary Amit Khare and having some of the IIT directors. The taskforce also aired similar concerns in its report.

“Introduction of engineering courses in the mother tongue is not possible in 2021. This is clear,” one of the two IIT Kharagpur officials said.

Last month, Pokhriyal had announced that the language options for JEE Main would be increased from three to 13 in 2021. This had kept alive hopes of a similar arrangement for the IIT Advanced. The top 2.5 lakh students from the JEE Main are allowed to take the JEE Advanced.