Opinion Snags that have riddled CUET must be quickly corrected. Government must pay attention to concerns over format

The Central Universities Entrance Test (CUET) was envisaged as a corrective to a system based on high marks and cut-offs. It promised to end the anxiety that many students graduating from schools to colleges and universities inevitably suffer. However, technical glitches have meant that instead of serving its stated purpose of simplifying the admission process to undergraduate courses, the new examinations have added to the stress of the youngsters. Server failures, admission cards being issued at the last minute and lack of clarity over examination centres have thrown unflattering light on the lack of preparedness of the National Testing Agency, the authority that conducts the CUET. Cancellations and rescheduling of the tests mean that the CUET will not be over before the last week of this month. Consequently, the admission procedure to the universities will stretch into September. This will, no doubt, have a spiralling effect on undergraduate timetables. The pandemic had upset academic schedules in the past two years. But the NTA must take much of the blame for this year’s delay.

With an aspirant being allowed to appear in up to nine papers, resulting in more than 50,000 subject combinations, the CUET — conducted in more than 550 cities in the country and 13 foreign centres — is a much bigger exercise than the entry tests to the IITs or medical institutions. Over 1.4 million students have registered for admissions to undergraduate courses in 44 central universities, 12 state universities, 11 deemed, and 19 private universities. A lot of preparation should have gone into conducting an operation of this scale. For instance, the pivot to online education during the pandemic had shown up the country’s digital deficits. The experiences of the past two years had given enough indications of the challenges the country’s IT architecture would face in conducting the CUET. It’s now apparent that the smooth conduct of the CUET will require an upgrade in the IT systems of at least the network of centres where the examinations are held. No time must be lost in making such improvements.

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The CUET for post-graduate courses is scheduled to be held in the second week of September. Several academicians have questioned the MCQ format of these examinations. In an Idea Exchange with this paper, the Vice Chancellor of JNU, Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, underlined that admission tests to masters-level programmes should assess the critical capacities of an aspirant and requested the government to rethink the format. The education ministry should take note of concerns such as hers. The CUET is a work in progress: The learnings from this year’s experiences must not be lost on the NTA and other educational authorities.