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The Ministry of Education (MoE) announced late Wednesday night the cancellation of the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET), just a day after over 9 lakh candidates appeared for it across 317 cities, following inputs from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs that “the integrity of the examination may have been compromised”.
With this decision, UGC-NET — key to finding an entry-level teaching job in Indian universities and also for admissions to PhD programmes — becomes the first centrally-conducted public examination to be scrapped after the Centre introduced a new anti-paper leak law.
The MoE also announced that the investigation into the inputs of the exam being compromised is being handed over to the CBI, and information about the re-exam will be shared separately.
Passed in Parliament in February 2024, the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act,m provides for three to five years in prison and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh for those “resorting to unfair means and offences.” However, since this law was only notified by DoPT on Thursday, that is June 21, its provisions are unlikely to be applicable to the UGC-NET paper leak.
The ministry’s decision came as a surprise to senior officials of the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts UGC-NET on behalf of the UGC and is already under fire for alleged irregularities in the conduct of the NEET undergraduate exam, the single-window test for admissions to all MBBS programmes in the country.
In fact, Tuesday evening, UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar tweeted that the NTA had “successfully conducted UGC-NET June 2024”. Kumar did not respond to calls Wednesday night.
According to the ministry statement, the adverse inputs on UGC-NET were received from the National Cybercrime Threat Analytics Unit of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Although the statement did not specify exactly how the exam’s integrity has been compromised, sources said that I4C inputs point to a paper leak on the dark web.
Also, given that the exam has been cancelled for all 9,08,580 candidates, it indicates that the alleged compromise could have been pertaining to the first paper which is common to all examinees.
UGC-NET has two papers — the first is common to all and the second is a subject-specific paper based on the candidate’s specialisation. The second paper is offered in 83 subjects.
The total duration for both papers combined is three hours. Both papers consist of objective-type multiple-choice questions (MCQs). A total of 150 questions are asked, with 50 questions in Paper 1 and 100 questions in Paper 2. There is no negative marking in the exam.
UGC-NET is conducted twice a year, in June and December. Although the NTA has been holding this test, on behalf of the UGC, in computer-based test format since December 2018, this year the agency went back to pen-and-paper format.
A computer-based test is conducted in multiple shifts over days and a pen-and-paper or OMR format exam can be finished in a single day in a single or double shift. NTA officials who spoke to The Indian Express said this year the decision to hold both CUET-UG (albeit partially) and UGC-NET June 2024 in pen-and-paper format was taken to help choose more examination centres in rural areas.
Reacting to the decision, Opposition parties hit out at the government, with the Congress saying that it was a “defeat of the arrogance of the Modi government”.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the cancellation of the examination “was a victory of the spirit of millions of students”.
“Narendra Modiji, you do ‘Pariksha pe charcha’ a lot, when will you ‘discuss NEET exam’? Cancellation of UGC-NET exam is a victory of the spirit of millions of students. This is the defeat of the arrogance of the Modi government due to which they made an attempt to trample on the future of our youth. The Union Education Minister had earlier said that no paper was leaked in NEET. When arrests are made of education mafia in Bihar, Gujarat and Haryana, the Education Minister accepts that some scam has taken place…,” said Kharge.
In his post on X, Kharge also said, “Modi Ji, please take the responsibility to stop your government’s rigging and paper leak in NEET exam too!”
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to meet some NEET aspirants Thursday, and the party is expected to raise the issue in Parliament which starts from June 24.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also hit out at the government and said that the leaks and corruption is fatal for the youths. “The laxity and corruption of the BJP government is fatal for the youth… Will accountability be fixed now? Will the education minister take responsibility for this lax system?” she said in a post on X.
Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha member Priyanka Chaturvedi said “the repeated and absolute failure to conduct national examinations fairly exposes the NTA’s incompetence”.
“This is an education emergency and also lets down lakhs of students who diligently prepare for these entrance exams, not to forget the mental pressure they go through. Cancelling is not the solution, accountability from the government and NTA is. This absolute disregard to young students and their careers is unfortunate,” she wrote on X.
