One Nation-One Examination: UGC plans to combine JEE and NEET under one umbrella   

This year has been a tough year for students, especially those appearing for competitive and entrance exams. And now what comes as another shocker is that as per a report by The Times of India (ToI), University Grants Commission (UGC) Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said that the commission is working on a proposal to blend engineering and medical entrance exams, namely, Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), with Common Universities Entrance Test Undergraduate (CUET) for UG.

As per the same report, this is to ensure that students do not have to appear for multiple entrance examinations based on the same knowledge base and just a single exam provides them "multiple opportunities to apply among the disciplines".

Additionally, Kumar explained, "The students who would like to go into engineering their marks in mathematics, physics, chemistry can be used as a ranking list and similarly for medicine. If they don't get into medicine or engineering, under CUET they will still have the opportunity to join different programmes using the same marks of either mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and so on. So, therefore, by writing once, in these four subjects students can try for different opportunities," as stated in a report by TOI. 

A few details about these exams
Having said that, what is the actual situation of JEE and NEET in the country? 

While the engineering entrance test JEE is conducted in two sessions every year, the medical entrance test NEET is conducted once a year. And with CUET, these three exams are the major entrance exams in the country. As per reports, almost 43 lakh students appeared for these exams this year. While the JEE candidates have Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics, the NEET exam replaces Mathematics with Biology. Moreover, all these subjects are included in the CUET UG's 61 subjects domain. 

What issues were reported this year?
Although CUET UG 2022 was marred with technical glitches, JEE Mains 2022 also faced a few issues. Technical glitches, servers down, last-minute exam cancellation, centres changed and late release of admit cards are just a few. Many protests, Twitter storms, petitions, pleas and Court hearings ensure but to no avail.