No weight to Class 12 board marks, common entrance mandatory for UG admission at central universities: UGC

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There will be no weightage of class 12 board marks in admission to the undergraduate courses at central universities including Delhi University from the 2022-23 academic session, the university grants commission (UGC) said on March 21.

India’s education regulator will conduct a common university entrance test (CUET) from the upcoming academic year for millions of college aspirants, and it will be mandatory for admission to all undergraduate courses at the central universities in the country.

UGC chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar said there is example of admission happening purely based on entrance performance in India especially at IITs. “For example, at IIT admissions, we use JEE scores primarily because of the diversity of the boards, and different kinds of evaluation systems. The same is true for university admission also. That is the reason, why we are giving one standard, NCERT syllabus, so everybody can prepare from there, and have a common reference,” Kumar told Moneycontrol in response to a query during the interaction.

However,  a college and university can set a minimum eligibility on board marks.

Beyond the central universities and their affiliating colleges, the CUET can be used by private universities, state backed universities and deemed to be universities if they wish to do so.

“We believe that as envisaged in the national education policy (NEP), the CUET will provide a common platform to get admission in all universities and colleges across the country. The CUET should provide equal opportunities to candidates,” UGC chairman  said.

“This is basically to reduce the burden on the students and the universities and the colleges and in fact the entire education system,” Kumar claimed.

This will be done in 13 languages including Hindi, English, Tamil, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Urdu etc.

The UGC chairman said the CUET is expected to reduce the financial burden on parents and students as students do not have to write multiple entrance tests for admission in UG and PG programs. This is one of the most important reforms as part of the NEP 2020, Kumar added.

To be sure, the CUET will be conducted for both UG and PG streams. The CUET for post-graduation level is not mandatory at least in 2022-23 even for the central universities.

The CUET for UG is mandatory for all the central universities including Delhi University, Hyderabad University, Allahabad University, Benaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University, and the Central University of Kerala among others.

State-run universities, deemed universities and private varsities can use CUET as their selection test for admission at the UG level on a voluntary basis.

Schedule of CUET:

The computer based entrance will be conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA). The CUET will be conducted in the first week of July and it will be based on the NCERT syllabus for class 12.

The exams will happen in two shifts — while shift one will have a compulsory language test of two domain subjects, and the general test; shift two will have four domain subjects and one language from 19 choices.

UGC chairman said the CUET will not affect the prevalent reservation policy in universities or at minority central universities like Jamia and AMU.

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(SOURCE – MONEYCONTROL)

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