There was no delay in the academic calendar of central universities due to the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), said Union Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar on Monday, December 12. He said this in a written response to a question in Lok Sabha, as stated in a report by PTI.
"There is no information that CUET has adversely affected studies and it has resulted in cost escalation of graduation, rather the students were able to apply to more than one university with a single form and fee. This has resulted in saving on the cost and effort needed to secure admission in the universities," the minister said.
It was Congress leader Deepak Baij who had asked Sarkar whether the students this year had to face a delay in admission to central universities, eventually pushing back the commencement of the academic year. He alleged that the delay was caused due to frequent cancellations of CUET.
In a response to this, Sarkar said, "The scale of the test was huge and some difficulties were faced by the students due to technical and geo-climatic reasons and the test was rescheduled in such cases. However, the overall process was managed successfully. In University of Delhi, the classes this year started earlier than last year."
Additionally, a committee of experts including professors of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and central universities has been constituted to suggest improvements, the minister added, as stated in a report by PTI.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) conducted the debut edition of CUET for approximately 14,90,293 candidates. The candidates applied for 54,555 unique combinations of subjects across 90 universities. To recall, CUET-UG began in July and was postponed and cancelled multiple times due to several glitches.
