On Friday, Union Cabinet approved the establishment of National Testing Agency (NTA). NTA will be an independent body and will conduct entrance test on Higher education. It will function similar to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) based in United States.
It will conduct entrance exam which any department or ministry will entrust to it and as a first step it will overtake the responsibility of all examinations which are currently organized by Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), including UGC’s National Eligibility Test (NET), Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) and NEET.
According to the sources, the HRD ministry will set the NTA either in IIT-Kanpur or in IIT-Delhi. Every year, more than 40 lakh students appear for seven different exams such as-- CAT, JEE (Main), JEE (Advanced), GATE, CMAT, NEET, NET — held by the CBSE, IITs, IIMs and AICTE.
Although, HRD ministry aims to make NTA as the largest exam conducting body, it still remains to be seen if IIMs and IITs will hand over their CAT and JEE exam to the body.
“All those decisions can be taken once the NTA is set up,” said a senior HRD Ministry official.
“The entrance examinations will be conducted in online mode at least twice a year, thereby giving adequate opportunity to candidates to bring out their best,” stated the government’s press statement released on Friday.
“NTA will be established as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 as an independent, autonomous, self-reliant and self-sustained premier testing organization, with flexibility to pay market salaries to the experts.”
The ministry is expecting that the fee paid by 40 lakh student should be enough to make the body self-reliant and financially independent to meet all administrative and operational expenses. Once set up, the body will be subjected to Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit.
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