New Delhi: No formal decision has been taken on the merger of medical entrance exam NEET and engineering entrance test JEE with CUET-UG and nothing will be imposed on students, UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said on Thursday. Kumar's comments came two days after Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said there are no plans to merge JEE and NEET with the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for the next two years.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) chief had last month announced that Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) will be merged with the CUET in future. "Merger of NEET and JEE with CUET is an idea we are floating, so that there is wider discussion among stakeholders, there is no formal decision that we have taken on this...nothing will be imposed on students from the top that from next year there will be a joint exam," Kumar said.
The UGC chief made the comments at a round table on "Enhancing Competitiveness and Quality Revolution in Indian Higher Education". The event was organised by the apex industry body, Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). "Even if a decision is taken, it should not affect the current students who are in classes 11 and 12. We need to give them sufficient time, it will not be implemented in next two years at least. It will be implemented only after enough consultations have been done and feedback has been taken into account," he added.
The debut edition of CUET-UG began in July and has been marred with glitches prompting the National Testing Agency (NTA) to cancel the exams at multiple centres. With 14.9 lakh registrations, the CUET, the common gateway for undergraduate admissions in all central universities, is now the second biggest entrance exam in the country, surpassing JEE-Main's average registration of nine lakh. NEET-UG is the biggest entrance test in India with an average of 18 lakh registrations.
While JEE-Mains is a Computer-Based Test (CBT) conducted twice a year, NEET is conducted in pen-and-paper mode. Kumar said that UGC has tied up with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ensure that students from remotest areas can have access to online education facilities.
"We are working on a multi-dimensional way to make sure that education reaches to the last student in the most remote area. So, we have signed up with MeitY as they have a large number of common service centres. Any student can walk into those centres, pay a nominal monthly fee, and access digital universities," he said.
The UGC chief also addressed numerous queries from the vice-chancellors present at the round table. "Nearly 550 universities have registered at the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) for higher credits. Thousands of students taking online courses are benefiting in terms of transferring the credits to the host university where they are studying online," he said.
"Currently, students can take up to 40 per cent of the credit requirements in a programme, but once we announce online regulations and establish the digital university, there is going to be an exponential growth of online education," he added. Kumar informed that the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) is going to be enhanced soon.
"It is going to be a comprehensive document. It will become the foundation of all kinds of education with the integration of three pillars - school education, skill education and national higher education," he said. Responding to question on deemed-to-be universities, Kumar said, There are around 126 deemed universities in India and we are already working on the deemed-to-be universities regulations. Removing the tag deemed-to-be' requires an amendment at UGC part, but it will surely happen, he said. (PTI)
