Demanding questions

All India exam protocols need a rethink

Controversies over the National Eligibility Cum Entrance Test (NEET) and the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET) focus the spotlight squarely on the capabilities of the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct such nation-wide examinations for admission to institutes of higher education. The NTA was set up in 2017 as an autonomous institution to create a scientific exam system on a par with global standards, superseding bodies such as the All India Council of Technical Education and the Central Board of Secondary Education and colleges and institutions that conducted these exams before. It is one of the world’s largest competitive testing agencies, conducting, among others, such exams as the Joint Entrance Exam for engineering colleges, the Common Management Admission Test and so on. Ironically, the NTA appears to be facing the same problems that it was set up to counter — of questionable practices in conducting exams by a myriad of institutions.

Problems have been showing up in piecemeal fashion since the NTA started functioning in 2018, such as substitute candidates appearing to write an exam (and topping it), incorrect scores, papers distributed in the wrong medium, and so on. Many of these problems converged on the current controversy over the NEET, for admission to undergraduate medical, dental, Ayush, and other courses, and the matter has reached the Supreme Court. Among the complaints were irregularities and discrepancies in the results, which were declared on June 4, the same day as the results of the Lok Sabha elections. Chief among them was the unusually high number of perfect scores, many of them reportedly from students in one centre in Haryana. Additionally, it emerged several students were granted “grace marks” for candidates facing paper-related issues, raising questions of transparency. There were also allegations of paper leaks in Bihar and Godhra (Gujarat). The Union government has since rescinded the grace marks and ordered a re-examination later this month. The latest UGC-NET, for entry-level teaching jobs and admission to PhD programmes, was cancelled by the Ministry of Education following reports from the Ministry of Home Affairs that the integrity of the exam might have been compromised. Interestingly, both allegations of paper leaks have emerged just months after Parliament passed a law to curb this India-wide menace.

The NTA’s shortcomings are one aspect of the problem. But the current controversies also point to larger questions about the structure of the education system. The immediate one is whether centralising exams, involving enormous numbers spread across wide geographies, is a practical option. For instance, some 2.4 million students sat for the NEET and 900,000 for the UGC-NET in over 300 cities. The broader problem lies in the shortcomings of India’s schooling system and the inadequate number of quality institutes of higher education. Students sitting for the NEET compete for 109,000 MBBS seats, for example. As a result, middle-class and lower-middle-class parents tend to invest their life savings on enrolling their children in expensive coaching classes to crack these exams. The high number of suicides by students who fail to make the cut is a direct result of these pressures. All told, the stakes for Indian students are unconscionably high. At the very least, the NTA urgently needs to address its own inefficacies so as not to add to them.