NTA faces critical staff shortages while managing 25 public exams

The National Testing Agency (NTA), responsible for conducting 25 significant public exams, operates with fewer than 25 permanent staff members.

This severe understaffing has led the agency to outsource critical functions such as paper-setting, distribution, and data security to private technical service providers and other external experts, according to former education administrators and higher education faculty with insights into the NTA’s operations.

The Union education ministry recently attributed 'institutional failure' to alleged irregularities in two major exams conducted by the NTA: the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical admissions and a paper leak in the National Eligibility Test (NET), which is used for PhD admissions and the recruitment of assistant professors.

These incidents have raised questions about the NTA's ability to manage its extensive responsibilities effectively.

Established in September 2018, the NTA was designed to be a streamlined and efficient agency similar to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the United States, which administers tests like the SAT and GRE.

However, while ETS employs over 200 staff members, the NTA relies on about a dozen officials on deputation from other government departments and temporary employees on fixed-term contracts.

According to R. Subrahmanyam, former secretary of the education ministry’s higher education department, the NTA was intended to be a lean entity, focusing on online exams with the help of competent technical partners.

He said that tasks such as encryption and decryption of question papers are outsourced to private agencies, originally to Tata Consultancy Services, among others.

"The agency was meant to maintain high credibility through partnerships with technically proficient organizations," Subrahmanyam said.

These partnerships are selected through rigorous processes emphasizing robust IT infrastructure and cybersecurity protocols.

Despite these measures, some university faculty members involved in setting exam papers have expressed concerns about potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited to compromise the exams' integrity.

These concerns have been exacerbated by the NTA's recent foray into pen-and-paper tests, a shift from its initial focus on computer-based exams.

The transition to pen-and-paper tests, such as the NEET, involves printing question papers at private presses, a process seen as more prone to security breaches.

"The printing process is manual and susceptible to leaks," Subrahmanyam explained. "This vulnerability underscores why the NTA initially prioritized digital exams."

In response to the recent issues, the government removed the NTA's director-general, a move widely seen in academic circles as an attempt to deflect blame.

In summary, the NTA’s reliance on a skeleton staff and external partners for critical operations has highlighted significant vulnerabilities in its exam administration processes.

The controversies surrounding the NEET and NET exams have spurred calls for substantial reforms to ensure the integrity and reliability of public examinations in India.