All central universities funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) will have to conduct admissions to their undergraduate courses via the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), announced the Commission on Monday, March 21. The CUET will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). Application forms will be up on the NTA's website in the first week of April, informed Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, Chairman, UGC.
Class XII marks will be given no weightage in the 45 central universities admitting students to the UG courses via the CUET. This was done to counter the "diversity" in the Boards and make it a level playing field for all students, said the UGC. The NCERT Class XII syllabus will be prescribed for the subjects. Question papers will also be based on the model papers of the NCERT syllabus for Class XII.
"We recommend that practical exams and interviews also be conducted by the university as per the existing methods for skill-based and professional courses such as Fine Arts, Music and Theatre," said the Chairman. A percentage of the interview will be assigned to the CUET score in these cases.
"A common test will reduce the financial burden and stress on both the students and the parents. It will also provide them with more opportunities to get admission into central universities, as envisaged in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020," said Prof Kumar. While the CUET will be conducted for both UG and PG programmes, it has not yet been made compulsory for the latter yet.
There will be no common centralised counselling for admissions, unlike the NEET or JEE exams. This means that students can apply to any number of universities for admission and the universities will have to employ multiple cycles of admission to fill the seats. "This makes the process more student-friendly and gives the students more opportunities," said Prof Kumar. The reservation criteria for the varsities and their affiliate and constituted colleges will not be altered, maintained the Chairman, however, he added, all the seats will have to be filled via the CUET only. Admissions for international students in Indian universities are exempted and will continue as per the existing system, said the UGC.
Answering a question on whether CUET will increase competition for admission into central universities, the UGC Chairman replied, "It provides an opportunity to more students. More students from economically weaker backgrounds will be able to aim for central universities. The CUET will provide wider options to students." Students can select universities based on the availability of their selected domains in the said varsity.
The NTA will be publishing the structure of the exam on its website tomorrow. Students will have to attempt a compulsory language paper from among 13 language options. They will also have to write a general test. A student can select up to six domain subjects to write the exam in. The test will be conducted in two shifts. Shift One will comprise Section I, which will be the compulsory language section, the general test and tests in up to two domain subjects of the student's choice. Shift Two will let the students attempt tests in up to four domain subjects, including one among the 19 optional languages.
Some of the 27 domain subjects, apart from the regular subjects, include Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Tradition Practices in India, Teaching Aptitude, Agriculture, Fine Arts, Sculpture, Performing Arts, Sanskrit, Accounting and Engineering Graphics.