CUET candidates struggle with delays, lack of materials as UGC forms expert committee for review

Lack of study materials, protracted exam date delays, inconsistent results, and repeated fee payments have all caused CUET exam candidates to experience inconvenience during the past three years.

Every year, between 13 and 14 lakh students depend on the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) to determine their chances of pursuing higher education.

Launched in 2022, the exam is required to be admitted to central universities. For their admissions, numerous more universities have also registered with CUET.

An expert committee was recently established by the Universities Grants Commission (UGC) to examine the conduct of CUET-UG and CUET-PG 2025.

The committee looked at the test's structure, number of papers, length, alignment with the syllabus, and operational logistics, among other things.

However, the suggested modifications fall well short of addressing the more general discussions around the test, which focus on whether standardizing the admission exams is indeed a good idea.

To standardize the admissions procedure for undergraduate (UG) and graduate (PG) programs across universities, CUET was implemented.

Universities have adopted a single, nationwide entrance exam as a result of it.

According to the UGC, the test has simplified admissions, lessened the need for disparate board requirements, and created an even playing field for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds and educational boards, guaranteeing equal access for all applicants.

The Common University Entrance Test, or CUET (UG)-2024, will benefit students in the following ways, according to the UGC.

In order to gain admission to the university of their choosing, students used to be under pressure to earn more than 95% on the Class 12 Board Examination.

The pressure to achieve very high scores on the one and only Board test has lessened since the launch of CUET (UG)-2024.

The scoring pattern and question typology produce significant differences in the marks assigned by various boards. The CUET (UG)-2024 will now standardize these.

CUET has advantages and disadvantages, according to Tamoghna Halder, an economics professor at Azim Premji University.

It calms the pandemonium, such as when certain universities used to have their own entrance exams instead of accepting results from board exams, which led to knowledge gaps, particularly among the underprivileged groups.

In 2023, Lonav, a second-year master's student at Hyderabad's English and Foreign Language University, took the CUET.

He had solely applied to courses in English literature. He claims that none of the language, literature, media, and culture topics covered in the course he has registered in were assessed in CUET.

“Though the exam is streamlined, the admission process is not. Students have to apply to each university and pay fees individually and to the NTA also,” he said.

According to Lonav, MCQs were formerly a characteristic that was exclusive to NET, but they have now made their way down to the UG level as well.

He refers to it as a process of flattening knowledge systems and asks, "How can we test knowledge of Chaucer with MCQs?"

However, the CUET this year just serves to reinforce that pattern. The UGC draft guidelines, which guarantee that students can study any PG or UG course regardless of their stream by passing the appropriate CUET test, are implemented by the most recent CUET announcement.

The following domain-specific subjects have been discontinued: "Entrepreneurship," "Teaching Aptitude," "Fashion Studies," "Tourism," "Legal Studies," and "Engineering Graphics."

Admission to these programs must be determined solely by the results of the General Aptitude Test.

There will now be 23 subject papers on CUET, including those in accounting/bookkeeping, business studies, agriculture, physics, chemistry, and other fields.

However, unlike entrance exams like JEE and NEET, CUET has a relative opacity.

Halder said, "There are no previous years papers made available for students. This is a disadvantage for students from marginalized backgrounds who may not have access to tuition, etc., as the sample question papers are not enough. So there is a need for more clarity about the exam’s coverage and level."

He added that in order to provide equal opportunities for all applicants, the UGC should also create study aids.

"I was the second batch of CUET. YouTube videos and study resources were absent. Some stuff is now available online," Lonav explains.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) released the scorecards this year.

The test was administered from May 15 to May 29. For "logistical reasons," the test was canceled in Delhi the night before it was supposed to take place.

It was rescheduled for later in May. On July 19, several students took a retest as well.

According to NTA sources, one of the reasons for the retest was that the question papers were distributed in a language that the candidates had not chosen. The roughly 1,000 applicants were dispersed among six states.

“Some of the grievances include time loss due to the distribution of wrong question papers,” a source said.

After numerous students pointed out errors in the first answer key, the answers were fixed in the second one.

“Candidates were given an opportunity for the challenge from July 7 to 9 along with the Provisional Answer Key, Question Paper, and Recorded responses. In this duration, about 9,512 answer key challenges were received, out of which 1,782 were unique challenges. Candidates were also given representation through e-mails and letters,” reads the statement released by NTA.

Students who had been anticipating the results since June 30 experienced heightened anxiety as a result of the preliminary answer key.