NTA will be restructured in 2025, to only conduct higher education entrance exams, says Pradhan

The move is part of examination reforms based on recommendation of a high level panel set up earlier this year following alleged leak of medical entrance NEET exam.

New Delhi: The National Testing Agency (NTA) will not conduct any recruitment exams from 2025, instead focusing only on higher education entrance tests, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced on Tuesday.

The agency will be restructured next year and new posts are being created, he added.

The move is part of examination reforms based on the recommendations of a high-level panel set up earlier this year following alleged leaks in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) medical entrance exam and a series of cancellations of others due to suspected leaks and other glitches.

The education ministry is also in conversation with the health ministry on conducting NEET in the traditional pen-and-paper mode or switch to a Computer Based Test (CBT).

"The NTA will be limited to conducting only entrance exams for higher education and not conduct any recruitment exams from next year," Pradhan told reporters.

He clarified that the Common University Entrance Test - Undergraduate (CUET-UG) would continue to be held once a year.

The high-level panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief R Radhakrishnan noted that the NTA outstretched itself to accommodate diverse requests from many test indenting agencies for handling end-to-end operations of tests.

"The NTA should primarily conduct entrance examinations. Enhancing its scope for other examinations may be considered after the capacity of the NTA is augmented," the panel said in its report.

Suggesting restructuring of the NTA, the committee recommended 10 specific verticals, headed at the director level. The verticals will be related to technology, products and operations, test security and surveillance.

"The NTA needs to be manned with internal domain-specific human resources and a leadership team with domain expertise, proven experience and skill sets who should take charge of the testing process in the future," it said.

The committee also noted that the NTA should have an "empowered and accountable" governing body with three designated sub-committees to oversee test audit, ethics and transparency; nomination and staff conditions; and stakeholder relationships.

The panel recommended the introduction of a DIGI-EXAM system on the lines of DIGI-YATRA to ensure that only the candidate writing the exam joined the intended programme.

"Essentially, multi-stage authentication of the candidate's identity is envisaged which makes use of Aadhar and biometrics and AI-based data analytics," it said.

Laying down a roadmap for testing centres, the panel suggested that it was possible to integrate such testing centres from Kendriya Vidyalyas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, reputable universities and institutes to establish a nationwide network of about 400-500 testing centres within a time frame of a year or so, which would provide about 2-2.5 lakh testing capacity for conducting CBT in one session nationwide.

"Eventually, one could envisage that every district headquarter should have a standardised and well-equipped CBT testing centre," it said.

In the line of fire over alleged irregularities in NEET-UG and PhD entrance NET, the Centre in July set up the panel to ensure transparent, smooth and fair conduct of examinations by the NTA.

While NEET-UG was under the scanner over several irregularities, including alleged leaks, the UGC-NET (University Grants Commission - National Eligibility Test) was cancelled as the ministry received input that its integrity had been compromised.

Both matters are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Two other exams -- CSIR-UGC NET and NEET-PG -- were cancelled at the last moment as a pre-emptive step.

The high-level panel included former AIIMS-Delhi director Randeep Guleria; Central University of Hyderabad Vice-Chancellor BJ Rao; K Ramamurthy, professor emeritus in IIT-Madras' Department of Civil Engineering; People Strong co-founder and Karmayogi Bharat board member Pankaj Bansal; IIT-Delhi Dean of Student Affairs Aditya Mittal; and Govind Jaiswal, a joint secretary in the education ministry.

The committee was also tasked with examining the existing security protocols related to the setting of papers and other processes for various examinations and making recommendations to enhance the robustness of the system.

The panel co-opted two IIT-Kanpur academics as members -- Amey Karkare, professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and Debapriya Roy, an assistant professor.