University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines on Central University Entrance Test (CUET), seems to have struck the right cord among institutions. The tests will now be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). According to the commission, CUET has been rolled out with an aim to standardise the evaluation process in all universities across the country. “Different boards have different evaluation patterns. Certain boards are more liberal in terms of their evaluation, which results in inflation of the marks as compared to students from other boards. Due to this inflation, students suffer through a competition of high cut off merits. CUET is expected to provide a level playing field and be a great equaliser for all students across the board,” Kartik Dave, professor, dean, Planning Division, Ambedkar University said.
It is believed that opting for multiple entrance exams from different universities has been an uphill tedious task for undergraduate aspirants. “From a student’s perspective, running from one college to another for entrance exams and admission procedures is a traumatic experience. CUET in that way is expected to reduce that stress and it can be tried out at least once to understand the scenario and depending on the feedback other remedial steps can be taken further,” Radhika Khanna, assistant professor, department of electronic media and mass communication, Pondicherry Central University, said.
While academicians believe that CUET will reduce the tensity of high cut offs for students, they have acknowledged that the common entrance test will give an impetus to internal migration and diversify students’ engagement in the universities. According to the commission’s guideline, students can give entrance exams in 13 languages. “With similar exam patterns across the nation, it will give more consistency. Moreover, universities from different states will be able to engage a diverse population. The classroom diversity will eventually grow, which is important for national progress and improvement of cultural and subcultural interactions. Students will be able to migrate more from one state to another state, which otherwise would not have been possible due to the restrictive education system,” Dave said.
However, as per a few academicians, the system comes with its own flaw. With universities following its own academic ecosystem – a generic question paper may not provide a deep insight into students’ intellectual quotient levels. For example, JNU follows a more research based approach for evaluation, as compared to Delhi University. “Universities will have to find a way around the new system, which is more skewed towards creating a long term stable environment,” Anirban Chakraborti, dean, School of Engineering and Technology, BML Munjal University, said.
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