UGC Chairman Jagdish Kumar has informed that this year the Common University Entrance Test (CUET UG) will be conducted in 3 shifts instead of 2 in a day. Along with this, a plan is also being made to merge it with important entrance exams like JEE and NEET. The chairman said that information about the merger of these entrance tests will be given at least two years in advance.
In an interview to PTI, the chairman said that the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the National Testing Agency (NTA) are ready to ensure that the second session of CUET-UG is free from any glitches. He said, ‘Regarding the student experience last year, I agree that there were glitches in some centers and this year we are taking care of all the issues related to the student experience. We will ensure that this time the students should focus only on the exam and not on any possible glitches.
“We are doing this by identifying the centers in advance and seeing the infrastructure available including computers, bandwidth, technical personnel at the centres, so that the second session is glitch-free,” he said. The second session of the exam is to be conducted from May 21 to 31 for admission to graduate courses in central universities across the country.
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He also said that under Plan B, arrangements have been made for additional computers and additional centers so that in case of any discrepancy, the candidates can be transferred there and the examination of a particular shift does not have to be cancelled. He made it clear that the examination schedule has been fixed in such a way that the academic calendar can be brought back on track from this year.
JEE, NEET and CUET exams will be merged
Asked about the proposal to merge CUET with engineering entrance exam JEE and medical entrance exam NEET, he said, “It is certainly doable.” It is being considered, but whenever the merger happens, it will be announced at least 2 years in advance. Students will be able to prepare accordingly.
He said, ‘Having a national level entrance exam will reduce the burden on the students. We thought of preparing the students mentally that NEP has proposed such a thing and it is likely to happen in the coming years. We are working internally on how to take this forward. Advice is also being taken from many stakeholders including the Ministry of Health.
There will be improvement in normalization formulas
When asked about the ‘normalisation’ of scores of the candidates, he said that efforts are being made to reduce any discrepancies during the process. Let us tell you that due to normalization last year scores of many candidates were less than their original scores, due to which they also had difficulty in getting the college of their choice.
The chairman said, “The schedule of the exam has been changed to 10 days instead of one and a half months this year to reduce any error in normalization as the variation is more when the exam is held for a longer period of time.” ‘ The normalization process has been prepared by a panel consisting of professors from Indian Statistical Institute, IIT Delhi and University of Delhi using the ‘Equipercentile Formula’.
CUET centers are divided into 3 categories
He said, ‘We have divided the CUET exam centers into categories A, B and C. Some centers where we faced problems last year are placed in C category and this time we will not use those exam centres. Category B will have such centers where we need to take care of the centers and do some ground level work. Category A exam centers are absolutely fine.