Management, Infra Issues Mar CUET-UG Examination

New Delhi: During the Common University Entrance Test for undergraduate admission conducted by the National Testing Agency in several centres in Delhi, students reported infrastructure and management issues that marred the examination experience.

At many centres, students were prohibited from wearing watches and shoes. To add to their woes, amenities such as electricity, fans, clocks and water coolers were missing at the locations.

At the Shyam Lal College test centre in Shahdara on Thursday, candidate Arin Vats lamented that despite arriving on time at 1pm as instructed, candidates had to wait outside until 1:45pm in the scorching heat. “The classrooms were substandard, with broken, dirty benches. The restrooms were filthy and foul-smelling, and there were no water facilities available in the whole centre.”

On Saturday, the political science and history exams were conducted at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Paschim Vihar. “The invigilator asked me to remove my belt, hair clip and shoes. We were made to walk barefoot because the invigilators said we couldn’t wear anything that covered our feet,” candidate Priyanka Chawla said.

Chawla was already frustrated at one of her exam dates being postponed from May 15 to 29, which required her to print her admit card again without knowing what the new exam centre was. She also complained that despite a one-hour-15-minute break allowed between two papers, the invigilator did not allow students to take a bio break. Another candidate said that the invigilator openly “encouraged cheating during the last couple of minutes of the exam”.

At a school in Jahangirpuri on Friday, students apparently discussed answers in the presence of the invigilator. Shreshtha Kothari told TOI, "We received the business studies paper 10 minutes early. For the accountancy exam, the paper was distributed 15 minutes early and we were asked to start writing immediately," he claimed. "The invigilators displayed a casual attitude throughout. Forty-five minutes into the exam, a male invigilator indirectly encouraged us to discuss the answers, saying, ‘If you don’t know something, ask your neighbours with similar sets but don’t make any noise’."

Sardhana Parashar of NTA did not respond to TOI’s queries regarding the invigilators’ casual approach to cheating.

At the test centre at Swami Vivekanand School, Narela, on Wednesday, there was a single tube light in the whole room and a fan that stopped working midway. The clock displayed the wrong time, bells rang prematurely and the examinees weren’t allowed to wear religious threads or use cardboard writing support. “We had to write competitive exams for economics and maths without a fan. The papers were distributed late, and the biometric systems malfunctioned, causing significant delays,” alleged Aarnav Ramachandra. “And is it reasonable to ask us to remove our religious threads?”

Tishya said the gates at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology opened an hour late, frisking was skipped, directions were unclear and some students bypassed biometric checks. The gate was reportedly opened late for the maths exam even at Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Dhakka, West Mukherjee Nagar.

Saransh said, "There was a rush for biometric verification and there were only 8 minutes left for the exam. They announced that whoever got into the exam hall in these 8 minutes would get the paper. This caused panic. Eventually, some students got 50 minutes to write, others only 30.”

A parent of candidate Rajeshwari said, “First, CUET-UG scheduled for May 15 across India was postponed only in the capital. Students struggled to download admit cards and were assigned test centres in distant locations. On the exam date, serious concerns about the infrastructure and fairness of the exam arose. The invigilators should be held accountable.”

A total of 1.5 lakh candidates are scheduled to appear in CUET centres across Delhi, which is double the number of aspirants for NEET-UG, the medical entrance exam that is also conducted by NTA.