UGC Chairman says issues in conduct of CUET will be ironed out soon

UGC Chairman Jagadesh Kumar has said the issues faced in the conduct of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) will be ironed out soon and the examination will be conducted twice a year. He stressed that the technical glitches encountered in the initial phases will not affect expansion plans for the crucial examination.

Speaking to reporters about when the Engineering entrance exam JEE and medical entrance exam NEET are to be merged with the CUET, Mr Kumar said, modalities are yet to be worked out. He said, an expert committee will be set up by end of this month and it will study all important entrance exams being conducted in the country as well as abroad. He said, if we have to introduce the exam next year, the preparation has to start now considering the massive exercise and the different disciplines involved.

The fourth phase of the CUET-UG today began. With 14.9 lakh registrations, the CUET, the common gateway for undergraduate admissions in all central universities, is now the second biggest entrance exam in the country, surpassing JEE-Main’s average registration of nine lakh. The debut edition of CUET-UG began in July and has been marred with glitches prompting the National Testing Agency (NTA) to cancel exams at multiple centres.

The fourth phase exam for additional 11,000 candidates has been postponed from August 17-20 to August 30 to accommodate the respective choice of city for centre. As per the initial plan, all phases of the CUET-UG were scheduled to conclude on August 20 but the exam conducting agency, National Testing Agency (NTA), later announced that all phases of the exam will conclude on August 28. This has now been further deferred and the exam has now been split into six phases.