Allegations of irregularities raise concerns over NTA’s integrity
Mohammad Alamullah | Clarion India
NEW DELHI — The National Testing Agency (NTA) is under scrutiny following a series of serious allegations regarding the integrity of national-level entrance examinations. This scrutiny heightened after an unprecedented situation arose in the NEET (UG) exam, where 67 students achieved a perfect score of 720, starkly contrasting the previous year’s two perfect scores. Released just ten days before the general election results in June this year, this anomaly raised questions about the NTA’s credibility. Many candidates of the UGC National Eligibility Test (NET) expressed their reluctance to take exams administered by an agency facing such serious allegations, including paper leaks and issues on the allocation of exam centres.
A brief chronology of key events related to the UGC NET 2024 provides insight into the unfolding situation. On 28 March 2024, the UGC announced that the NET exam would now serve as the entrance test for PhD admissions in various institutions, as part of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. However, by 4 June 2024, reports of irregularities in NEET (UG) results began to raise significant doubts about the NTA’s credibility.
Despite widespread protests, the NTA conducted the UGC NET exams across the country on 18 June, using OMR sheets in a single day and covering 83 subjects. This decision was met with criticism, given the ongoing concerns over the agency’s integrity. The situation escalated the next day when the Ministry of Education cancelled the exam, stating, “On June 19, 2024, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received certain inputs… These inputs prima facie indicate that the integrity of the said examination may have been compromised.” The matter was subsequently handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
In the following weeks, the CBI dismissed conspiracy theories but charged a student for allegedly falsifying evidence on 11 July 2024. By 2 August, new exam dates were announced, reverting to the Computer Based Test (CBT) format. However, on 7 September, provisional answer keys revealed numerous errors, prompting students to challenge the accuracy for a fee of Rs 200 per question. The deadline for challenging the answer keys was extended on 13 September amid protests from financially constrained students.
Among the many errors reported, a matching question in the English exam contained options that did not accurately reflect historical facts. For instance, a question on Derek Walcott’s Nobel Prize omitted the relevant year, leading to confusion among candidates. In the sociology exam, the provisional answer incorrectly identified “emigration” as the answer to a definition relating to moving away from one’s country. Candidates pointed out that the term “migration” was more appropriate, revealing a pattern of flawed assessments.
Further controversy arose when candidates reported over 35 confirmed errors in the history exam’s answer key, which the NTA replaced without prior notification. This lack of transparency has left many questioning the integrity of the examination process. The sheer scale of errors in the answer keys has prompted widespread suspicion among students. One candidate expressed frustration, stating, “If the NTA answer key had claimed that the Sun revolves around the Earth, lakhs of candidates would have had to pay Rs 200 each to challenge that.”
The English NET exam included a staggering 13 out of 100 questions based solely on chronology, requiring students to possess encyclopaedic knowledge of literary and historical timelines. This has raised serious questions about the appropriateness of such an assessment format. As one student remarked, “This is not an objective way to assess our abilities; it’s a test of memorisation.”
This report merely scratches the surface of the ongoing issues surrounding the UGC NET exam. Numerous questions linger for the NTA and UGC, including: If the CBI found no evidence of a paper leak, why were the original results withheld? Who is responsible for crafting these flawed question papers? How are the Rs 200 challenge fees being utilised, and will there be a public record of these transactions? What justification exists for conducting the same subject exam in different shifts without transparency regarding the normalisation process? Why can’t NTA refund amounts for verified errors before releasing final results?
These critical questions must not remain unanswered. The future of education in the country hinges on the accountability of these institutions, and the voices of lakhs of candidates deserve to be heard. As one candidate concluded, “We deserve transparency and fairness in our examinations.”
