Come 2025, and prestigious entrance exams including the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) will be modified, as per a high-level committee from the Ministry of Education, which recommended reforms in how the tests are conducted in the country.
The seven-member high-level committee of experts in June also recommended the restructuring and functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the nationwide outrage over the alleged breaches, irregularities and paper leaks in the NEET-UG this year. The panel has also recommended a Digi Exam system, similar to Digi Yatra, to prevent impersonation.
“Candidates are required to upload their data each time they wish to take an exam. Verifying this information during the application process is insufficient, as NTA caters to numerous TIAs — which can create communication gaps between the candidate and the academic programme they are joining. This may lead to discrepancies between the candidate appearing for the exam and the person enrolled in the course, a digit exam system can help prevent this,” it stated in the report.
Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Tuesday that the NTA will only focus on conducting entrance exams and not recruitment exams.
What Are These Reforms?
In its report titled ‘Reforming the National Entrance Testing in India’ submitted to the education ministry in October, the high-level committee made some of the recommendations, which include Computer-Based Test (CBT) format for all entrance exams and hybrid model for places where complete online exams cannot be conducted; digital transfer of question papers in case of hybrid model; holding multi-stage exam for NEET-UG, akin to JEE; reducing the number of subject choices in CUET-UG; hiring permanent personnel in NTA instead of temporary staff; and limiting the number of outsourced/private centres and instead establishing new CBT centres in government-run institutions.
Set up in 2017 by the NDA government, the NTA is responsible for conducting 15 major entrance examinations in India, including NEET-UG, JEE-Mains, CUET-UG, UGC-CSIR NET and NET, among others.
Soon after results of NEET-UG 2024 were announced in June, it sparked a massive furore with allegations of irregularities, paper leaks and inflated marks surfacing from different parts of the country. There were reports of involvement of the exam centre personnel leaking the question paper from Godhra and Jharkhand. The matter was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which has so far filed five charge sheets in NEET(UG) paper theft case against a total of 45 accused.
So far, NEET-UG has been conducted in the pen and paper mode.
The allegations reached the courts and finally the Supreme Court, where a bench heard all the petitions filed both in favour of a re-test as well as those against it. The SC finally announced its verdict on August 2 ruling out a re-test and asking the NTA to completely restructure the exam process.
What Will NIA Restructuring Include?
The panel has suggested that the NTA sets up an empowered and accountable Governing Body. “NTA needs to be manned with internal domain-specific human resources, who should take charge of the testing procedure in the future,” the report said.
It stressed on 10 specific verticals for NTA, headed at director level. “Two additional director generals should oversee these verticals. ADG-1 should oversee five verticals related to technology, products and operations while ADG-2 should look at test security and surveillance,” the committee recommended.
It also said the NTA and every Test Indenting Agency should clearly define their roles and responsibilities. “NTA should develop institutional linkages with state/district authorities for providing a Secure Test Administration Apparatus, Also, that coordination committees at state and district level must be set up with clear responsibilities,” the report said.
What Are Multi-Session And Multi-Stage Testing?
The major policy changes recommended include multi-session and multi-stage testing procedures. The panel has suggested multi-stage testing for NEET-UG as a viable possibility that needs to be followed up. “An acceptable framework with thresholds, and test objectives of scoring/ranking at each stage, and the number of attempts may be evolved,” the report stated.
It has suggested multi-session testing, spread over typically a few days or a week could be adopted, especially, when the number of registered candidates, exceeds say 2 lakh.
For entrance exams like CUET-UG, conducted for admissions to undergraduate programmes in central universities, where students so far have a large number of subject choices to opt from, the panel has suggested that the number of streams be streamlined. “Multitude subject streams in CUET test may be rationalised to have only a compact cluster of related subject streams,” it said.
Following this, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recently announced reducing the number of total subject choices available to 37 from 67. This includes a decrease in domain subjects from 29 to 23.
What Is Testing Centre Allocation Policy?
The committee has recommended adopting a ‘Testing Centre Allocation Policy’ to ensure, that ideally, the candidates should get a choice of testing centre in their district of residence. “Aberrations or strange patterns of choices of testing centres may be detected through data analytics, and remedial action should be taken before the test. A suitable deterrent clause may be specified in the application form for curbing the allocation of such centres where the choice of centre appear ‘suspicious or unusual’,” it said.
One of the allegations raised during NEET-UG leak was the choice of examination centres in remote areas where surveillance was lesser than in cities. However, the NTA maintained that choice of test centres is not in the hands of the candidate, they can only apply for a change if there are any errors in the application form.
Hybrid Model For Places Where CBT Is Not Possible
The panel has suggested two ways for securing the test where CBT format is not possible. One of the methods that could be adopted in such cases is that the question paper is transmitted digitally while candidates can write the answers in the OMR sheets. “This model will also help reduce vulnerability of both CBT and Pen and Paper Test (PPT),” the panel said.
This is to prevent the role of third-party and limiting the number of people handling the question paper which so far in the pen and paper mode used to be put in a digi-locker, placed in a public sector bank and then transported to the exam centre hours before the exam is scheduled. In this year’s NEET-UG, exam centre personnel at Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh broke the digi locker and extracted the question paper from it right before the exam.
The panel also recommended that the CBT process is adopted till the question papers are delivered to the confidential servers of the test centres. “Subsequently, question paper will be printed at the centre using high-speed printers and then distributed to the candidates for the exam being held in the PPT mode. Pilot testing of this method must be done before its induction,” it stated.
Standardised And Mobile Testing Centres
The committee recommended that every district in the country (except very thinly populated) to have a Standradised Testing Centre (STC) that can conduct CBT/PPT format tests based on demand. “NTA may target developing 1,000 STCs, in the country, in a phased manner, in government institutions. This process may require a ‘war footing’ approach,” it said.
It also recommended Mobile Testing Centres (MTCs) to facilitate aspirational candidates from the rural, remote, relatively inaccessible areas, for example, the Northeast and North-Himalayan states, among others. “Typically, a large bus with a seating capacity of 40-50 persons could accommodate 30 candidates. These MTCs should be equipped with secure servers that are connect to the command centre,” it said.
Training Of Testing Teams
Nationwide entrance testing involves large and multi-domain testing teams. “It is necessary to comprehensively train and update all stakeholders deployed at multiple levels, so that they can understand, identify the challenges, and prevent potential breaches. Hence, NTA and its associates will have to re-invent themselves constantly via training and re-training mechanisms,” the report stated.
Overall, the panel envisaged that in the future the NTA be transformed into a nimble, zero-error, adaptive and integrative process. It has also emphasised that in the future more national-level entrance exams are conducted in Computer-Adaptive Testing (CAT), where it adjusts difficulty level, and order of questions based on the test takers’ performance in real-time. This format of testing is already being used in countries like the US for all exams. Currently, in India, the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) are based on CAT. But, none of the large-scale examinations conducted in India use the internationally validated mode of CAT.
Meanwhile, the ministry has set up a high-powered steering committee, as also suggested by the panel, to monitor the implementation of its recommendations.
