New Delhi: The government has asked some 19,500 schools to open their computer facilities to all JEE Advanced candidates from their neighbourhood so that these students can take a mock online test before the real one.

A decision to hold the JEE Advanced as an entirely computer-based test this year has prompted a petition to Patna High Court saying it would disadvantage rural students unfamiliar with online tests.

So, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, which is organising this year's JEE Advanced, will hold an online mock test between May 1 and May 15, ahead of the actual May 20 test, to allay rural students' fears. The test, however, will be available only to schools, and only if they apply.

Many schools, especially state government schools in rural areas, lack computers. The Centre has therefore asked the 19,500 schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, which it administers, to help not just their own students but those from the neighbourhood take the mock test.

These 19,500 schools include the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti schools, all of which are in rural areas, and the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan schools, many of which are rural.

The results of the JEE Main, scheduled for April 8, will be out by May 1, so students will know who has qualified for the JEE Advanced and can take the mock test.

JEE Main scores govern admission to BTech courses in colleges such as the National Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Information Technology and the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur. Its top 2.24 lakh performers can take the JEE Advanced for admission to BTech courses in the IITs.

An official associated with the conduct of the JEE Advanced said the mock test would be similar to the actual test.

R. Subramanian, special secretary in the human resource development ministry, wrote to the CBSE chairperson and the commissioners of the Kendriya Vidyalaya and Jawahar Navodaya establishments last week.

"All the students who qualified to write JEE Advanced examination based on the JEE Main rank may be allowed free access to the computer centre of all the schools under your administrative purview to take a mock test provided online by IIT Kanpur," the letter said.