New Delhi: The Modi government is looking at conducting a centralized common entrance test for admission to various universities in the July-August period from this academic session (2021-22) onwards, reported by The Print.
The test, which has been advocated under the new National Education Policy and is one of the key schemes that the Ministry of Education is pursuing actively, will be a single entrance test like the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) and the National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET), for admission to non-technical programmes at the undergraduate level.
The scores in the test will be for all central universities in the country like Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, Jawaharlal Nehru University among others.
ThePrint had reported that the MoE was set to launch the common entrance test for universities, along with nine other schemes mentioned in the NEP 2020, in the month of May.
The common entrance test, however, was stuck in limbo because of the raging second Covid-19 wave in the country.
With the cancellation of CBSE Class 12 exams last month and the decreasing Covid-19 caseload across cities in the country, the ministry is “positively considering” conducting the exams in the next two months, sources told ThePrint.
ThePrint reached the education ministry spokesperson for an official comment on the issue via email but there was no response till the time of publishing this report.
“There is a suggestion that students whose Class 12 exams have been cancelled should be allotted grades instead of marks, hence it is imperative that university admissions also happen differently,” said a ministry official.
“The ministry is considering conducting common entrance tests for students across the country in the July-August period.”
Sources also said that if students are awarded grades instead of marks, admission to universities will be based entirely on the entrance test scores, instead of giving some weightage to Class 12 marks and the rest to entrance exam scores.
“The proposal for conducting common entrance exams for all universities was put on hold due to the pandemic but it will be discussed again with the universities,” another ministry official said.
