One Nation, One Exam

Like China’s Gaokao, India’s CUET-UG is a ticket to some of the country’s best universities. With standardised tests and scores, it levels the playing field – somewhat – for students in, say, Darbhanga and Delhi. But from its beginning in 2022, it’s been plagued with niggles. Last-minute exam centre changes had locked out many candidates in the first edition. This time, there’s a controversy because students have been assigned centres hundreds of kilometres from home. NTA, which conducts the exam, says a minuscule 3.4% of candidates are affected. In absolute numbers, that’s 53,000 lives. NTA argues this has happened because it doesn’t have enough testing centres in Delhi, UP and Bihar, which are home to 43% of candidates. But who’s to blame for that? Not the candidates and their families.

The whole point of a centralised entrance test is that you can take it, without travelling to all the different cities where your preferred universities are located. NTA shouldn’t undermine that principle. In China, Gaokao candidates must take the test in their home province. In 2024, when a panel made 101 recommendations to improve NTA, assigning testing centres in a candidate’s district of residence was one. It was also part of NTA’s founding philosophy – “to serve requirements of rural students…locate centres at sub-district and district level.”

In 2024’s LS polls, officials travelled for seven hours to Warshi in Ladakh, so that a family of five could vote. NTA has to work the same way, bringing testing centres to candidates, rather than making them run around. How? Tie up with more schools and colleges – they are anyway closed in summer when CUET-UG and other entrance tests are held. There’s no dearth of buildings and seats; what’s needed is investment in hardware. NTA should do that, because that’s its job.