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Stung by the NEET-UG paper leak last year, the Union government had held several deliberations on preventing such embarrassment in the future — a shift to online exams frequently emerging as a serious option.
A high-level committee headed by former ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan, tasked with reforming the entrance examination process, had even urged the government to adopt computer-based testing to limit access to question papers.
Yet on Thursday, the government chose to maintain status quo — the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to MBBS programmes will continue in pen-and-paper mode. The announcement was made by the National Testing Agency (NTA) in a notification.
Why then did the Health and Education Ministries stick with the traditional format despite the paper leak exposing vulnerabilities in the examination process?
* NEET-UG is the largest national entrance examination in the country. Last year, about 24 lakh candidates applied for the test, with a significant number appearing from rural areas. This year, sources said, authorities anticipate anywhere between 28 lakh to 30 lakh aspirants will take the exam. Switching from pen-and-paper mode to a computer-based test so quickly for an examination of NEET’s scale would prove to be a logistical nightmare for officials.
“To hold an entrance test in an online format, we can accommodate about 1.5 lakh candidates in one shift. For say 30 lakh candidates, the exam would have to be held in multiple shifts stretching over 10 days, if not more. Setting so many variations of the question paper and finding a large number of reliable test centres with computers in a small window is not easy,” said a source in the government who did not wish to be identified.
Logistics was a big reason why the government preferred to maintain the status quo. While an online exam would limit the number of hands the question paper passes through, the NTA cannot afford to repeat the embarrassing experience of the first Central University Entrance Test (CUET), which saw technical glitches (on account of ill-prepared test centres) forcing cancellation of examination at the last minute on multiple days.
** The second factor behind maintaining pen-and-paper format was what had kept NEET-UG from going digital even as other major entrance tests moved to computer-based testing — its large rural student base. Although the government hasn’t in the past disclosed what proportion of NEET-UG aspirants hail from rural areas, health ministry officials often claim it’s a significant number.
“While candidates living and raised in urban areas are familiar with using computers and, in fact, even take simulated tests on them, students from rural schools and areas are not familiar with this format and will obviously be at a disadvantage if we announce a change in the format just three months before the exam is to be held,” another source in the government said.
Even though NEET-UG will be held in the traditional format for yet another year, government officials are not completely ruling out changes in the long term. The objective, as suggested by the Radhakrishnan Committee, is still to eventually migrate to a computer-based exam, said an official. “But only when we are ready with a robust list of centres and the candidates have been given advance notice about the format change,” the official said.
As for this year, ministry officials are tightlipped about the additional measures that will be taken to ensure no paper leaks.
