The Union Cabinet, in a landmark decision, has approved the setting up of ‘National Testing Agency (NTA)’. The NTA would be the sole authority to conduct entrance examinations for higher education institutions. The move has lauded and called ‘historic’ by the Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar.
What Falls Under CBSE, AICTE So Far
At present Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) conducts nine diferent examinations which include the most coveted JEE Main conducted for undergraduate engineering programmes, NEET-UG conducted for undergraduate medical and dental programmes on behalf of Medical Council of India and Health Ministry, NET conducted on behalf of UGC.
Other key exmas which fall in the ambit of CBSE right now are Central Teacher Eligibility Tets (CTET), and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) Admission Test.
What Happens Post NTA
1. The official statement said that NTA would relieve CBSE, AICTE and other educational agencies from conducting these entrance examinations.
2. Statement says NTA would help bring high reliability and standardised difficulty level for assessing the aptitude, intelligence, and problem-solving abilities of the students.
3. Exams will be conducted online and at least twice a year, thus providing an opportunity to students to give their best performance.
4. To facilitate students in rural areas, the agency would locate exam centres at sub-district/district level
5. As far as possible a hands-on training exercise will be provided to the students.
The release also said that NTA would be given a one time grant of Rs. 25 crore from the government for operation in the first year after which it will be self-sustainable. The agency will be chaired by an educationist who will be appointed by Human Resource Development Ministry.
It is speculated that the NTA will benefit about 40 lakh studentswho appaer in various entrance examinations.
