The first priority of the high level committee set up by the Ministry of Education to ensure transparent and smooth conduct of examinations by the National Testing Agency (NTA) will be to elicit concerns, and suggestions from parents and students, said former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan who is heading the panel of experts. The seven-member committee, in its first meeting on Monday, also decided to consolidate the suggestions received in the next two weeks. “The first priority for us is to elicit from the students and parents in the country their concerns and suggestions. We are going to engage with them as far as possible in person, or through electronic media. And in the next fortnight, we would like to consolidate this,” Radhakrishnan told DD News. He added: “The next priority for us is to build quickly a robust system for starting the tests. We are also looking at the future, especially to develop in this country a robust system, a tamper-proof system, a system with zero error, and a system that will lessen the difficulties and stress for the students with adequate flexibility built into it.” The Ministry of Education constituted the committee on Saturday. It includes Dr. Randeep Guleria, former director, AIIMS; Professor B J Rao, Vice Chancellor, Central University of Hyderabad; Professor Ramamurthy K, Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras; Professor Aditya Mittal, Dean Student Affairs, IIT Delhi; Govind Jaiswal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Education; Pankaj Bansal, co-founder PeopleStrong and Board Member, Karmayogi Bharat. After a controversy over a NEET-UG paper leak, and a retest for 1563 candidates who were given ‘grace marks’ for ‘loss of time’ in the NEET-UG exam held in May, three other public exams – UGC-NET, CSIR-UGC NET, and NEET-PG – have either been cancelled or postponed. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had announced last week that a high level panel would be set up to review the structure and functioning of the NTA, which conducts these exams. The committee will submit its report to the Ministry within two months. It will make recommendations on three aspects - reform in the mechanism of the examination process, improvement in data security protocol, and the structure and functioning of the NTA.
