On Thursday, the University Grants Commission (UGC) announced that a common entrance test would be held for the postgraduate programme admissions in 42 central universities for the upcoming academic year.
The entrance test will be two hours long and will be held in the last week of July. According to the UDC chairperson, Prof M Jagadesh Kumar, the application window for the test has been launched which will be anchored by the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Until the academic session of 2021-22, there were only 14 central universities that came up in 2009 had used CUET to admit PG courses for students. Although 42 universities have decided to adopt the common test but is not made mandatory.
Kumar went on to say that the CUET-PG has been introduced for the first time in the university system that is expected to provide a single window opportunity for the student that will help them to apply to different universities. Many central universities will likely participate in CUET, though it’s not mandatory.
According to the All India Higher Education Survey 2019-20 the size of India’s PG was small compared to students who enroll at UG levels.
Earlier UGC had made it compulsory for the 46 central universities to adopt CUET which was the key recommendation of the National Education Policy-2020 for undergraduate courses admission, from the new academic year. The registration window was accordingly opened that closed on May 22. Other than the central universities, 19 private universities, 12 state universities and 11 deemed universities had decided to adopt the CUET at the UG level.
The CUET for PG will be held in two shifts and will be a computer based test in multiple languages, for which the application test will be accepted till June 18.
