Javadekar reviews conduct of online examination by National Testing Agency

Union HRD Minister Prakash Friday reviewed the conduct of examination by the newly established National Testing Agency (NTA) which is currently conducting its maiden computer-based exam.

Javadekar, who visited NTA's head office in Noida, interacted with officials there and discussed with them the need for conducting the examination in a transparent and user-friendly manner.

"This was vision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have examination which is conducted in a transparent and user-friendly manner. National testing agencies are operational in a few advanced countries and now introducing the concept in India will also give our examination system a strength of more scientific papers," he told reporters.

"The NTA is conducting a psychometric analysis of the question papers of the last three years," Javadekar said.

He said the agency is monitoring closely everything in the ongoing UGC-NET examination.

"Today was the fourth day of the UGC-NET examination in which 9.5 lakh students are participating. It will be conducted for five days in 10 sessions. Everything is being monitored closely. More than 8,000 CCTV cameras have been installed in centres where 25,000 invigilators and a team of observers have been deputed," Javadekar said.

The first computer-based test -- National Eligibility Test 2018 (UGC-NET) -- for the National Testing Agency began on Tuesday.

Pegged as one of the most secure tests in the country so far, the candidates underwent multiple layers of checks and each entry across 598 centres was monitored in real time at the NTA headquarters through live CCTV cameras. A total of 4000 jammers were also put in place.