The ongoing CUET postgraduate (PG) examinations came as a jolt to most fresh graduates. I am one of them. With a growing sense of anxiety about the new format, and major universities opting out of the new entrance examination system, many of us found ourselves constantly checking for updates on social media platforms and the news.
My experience was marred by delays. For months after graduating, I didn’t hear anything about the date-sheet for the upcoming examinations. Having enough time and tools to prepare is a crucial need that remained unmet due to delays from the administration’s end. Additionally, reading about the experiences of students applying to undergraduate courses, with last-minute changes in centres and technical glitches, left me worried and afraid.
CUET also came with the promise of a revised format. As a graduate with a social science degree, I didn’t know what to expect from the 25-mark section on mathematical reasoning and general knowledge. A new wave of books hit the market, claiming to prepare students on how to crack an examination that had never been held before. Soon, I witnessed my peers (those of us who could afford to) rushing to purchase material that would help them wade through the uncertainty of having to appear for a freshly-created exam. The market was full of competitors promising us success.
However, what was more worrying than the revised format was the daunting task of filling out the application form. The website routinely crashed while I was on the payment window and often popped an error notification, which said “duplicate session”. The process of having to check one’s course code in a 200+ page document was time-consuming and unnecessarily complicated. With all the delays and frustrations of filling up an elaborate form, came the disappointing yet inevitable limitation of this hyper-centralised exercise — time. Many exams for different courses were scheduled to be held on the same day at the same time, owing to which I could only choose one course between the two I originally wanted to sit for. I wanted to appear both for MA (Sociology) and MA (Mass Communication). However, I had to choose between the two. I had to compromise on my options this early on in my academic and professional life through no fault of my own. The choice was simply not mine.
In the first week of September, about two days before our entrance exam, we received admit cards. Thankfully, my centre aligned with the location preference I had applied for. The crowd was well-managed and there were checkpoints where we could drop off our bags, although students were charged a sum of Rs 30 for the same. We were disallowed from carrying anything inside and the officials on exam duty provided us with masks, paper and a pen on our way in. The centre seemed comfortable and expansive. Drinking water and washroom facilities were hygienic and the centre was air-conditioned.
However, every student had to mandatorily submit their thumb impression, after which the candidate’s attendance was marked and they were allotted their cubicle. This seemed unnecessary for an entrance exam and I did not see any space where students were able to exercise their agency, or give consent, in matters related to biometric data-sharing. On my floor, the exam went smoothly and there were no technical glitches. The instructions were not explained or read out. We had to follow what was flashing on the computer and the centre was equipped with an IT team that promptly helped a student whose system crashed towards the end.
Unexpectedly, the 25-mark section carried mathematical questions on profit, loss, simple interest and compound interest. Most of the questions were too heavy to qualify as reasoning sums. The domain paper was of moderate to high difficulty, with some questions on the year of publication of academic works and other trivia.
As I experienced it, the CUET — in its first year — has failed the students it was meant to help. From planning to implementation, the hurdles involved were unnecessary and entirely avoidable. The question of access here is crucial too. With a hastened process, the disbursal of information was scanty and inaccessible to many on the other end of the digital divide. The CUET ended up going down the same path that any hyper-centralised exercise in the last few years has. In the process, I had to experience a grave loss of opportunity and agency.
The writer is a graduate in sociology from the University of Delhi
