A protest by an associaton, in New Delhi
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
In 2017, the Government of India established the National Testing Agency (NTA) to conduct entrance examinations for professional courses. Envisioned to conduct multiple choice question (MCQ)-type of examinations in electronic mode, the NTA was to have specialists in the science of testing to set up appropriate question banks and also evaluator frameworks and organisational expertise. The NTA, that conducts more than 15 entrance examinations for various higher education institutions including the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for central university admissions and the post-graduate admissions in medical and University Grants Commission (UGC) courses, is a lean and thin organisation, with most of the work outsourced. It is headed by a chairman and an Indian Administrative Service officer working as the chief executive officer, neither of whom have the required competence to build an institution as contemplated.
Pertinent questions
Contrary to the grand vision, the NTA conducts examinations in pen to paper mode that provides huge scope for malpractice — from the setting of the paper, to its printing, distribution and final delivery to a large number of examination centres — 4,750 for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), or NEET–UG, for admission in undergraduate medical courses. The fiasco this year in the conduct of the NEET-UG has created dismay and a complete loss of trust in the NTA’s ability or willingness to conduct a fair examination. The question is could this have been avoided? And what needs to be done to ensure the integrity of the examination system in India?
NEET, which is conducted by the NTA, was conceived with the best intentions but has gone hopelessly wrong due to faulty and incompetent implementation. The idea was to standardise the quality of students aspiring to become doctors, which is an important concern given the varying standards of school boards across India. Its flawed implementation, the widespread leakage of question papers, the arbitrary manner of awarding grace marks, conducting a re-examination for just a handful of students, and now tinkering with the ranking have all made the whole process murky.
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Over a month has passed. Instead of ordering a re-examination — that would have been the most straightforward and fairest way of handling the issue — all this tampering with the results has only deepened distrust and raised difficult questions. How is the government convinced that the leaks are localised, only to Patna and Godhra, when the arrests of wrongdoers are being reported from more than four to five States? Or, is it that the government is uncertain of the NTA’s capability to conduct a flawless re-examination of NEET, giving rise to even more serious concern?
The Supreme Court of India has stepped in and is hearing petitions. The government has said that it intends starting the counselling process (the final stage for admissions), from the third week of July. This is an examination where rank is critical. Those with higher ranks get admission to government institutions, getting quality education at subsidised rates. The fact that the cut-off percentages in previous years were in the abysmal range of 19% to 22% indicates how several students with a decent rank were unable to get admission due to high capitation fees, forcing the cut-off percentage to be reduced. This is shameful and needs reflection.
In the wake of widespread fears of the integrity of other national tests having been compromised and after the below par functioning of the NTA, the government has now constituted a seven-member high-level committee of experts chaired by the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, K. Radhakrishnan. Its terms of reference are: reforming the mechanism of the examination process to forestall any possible breach, and based on a review of the standard operating procedures, suggesting monitoring mechanisms; improving data security protocols to enhance the robustness of the examination; making recommendations on the structure and the functioning of the NTA; defining the roles and the responsibilities of functionaries at all levels, and establishing a responsive grievance redress mechanism. These are basic issues that ought to have been examined and addressed when the NTA was formed. Clearly, the governance mechanism seems to have collapsed somewhere along the way.
Decentralisation as a workable option
Reports of widespread cheating and leakages in examinations conducted at the national levels force us to reconsider and review the centralised testing mechanism for higher education institutions. There are options. Why cannot the central government restrict testing for entry to its own institutions and decentralise, where States fill up their own seats on the basis of entrance examinations? This could be based on a standard template that can be prepared by the central government to ensure that the requisite standards are maintained for the test and the evaluator framework.
Testing bodies could be restructured to incorporate domain experts, testing experts and also IT measures of not just testing tools but also cyber safety and multiple types of safeguards that are necessary to conduct large-scale exams in a fair manner and where every decimal counts for a student.
Of all the options listed, the case for decentralisation seems strong and appropriate for our present-day conditions. The examinations that 24 lakh students appear for to fill one lakh seats are high stake tests, bitterly contested and fraught with risk.
Strong vested interests and criminal elements would want to do everything to undermine streamlined systems of merit-based entrance to professional education or to coveted universities and colleges. This would include selling examination papers for financial gain. Decentralising the examination processes to States and different governing entities could reduce the element of risk. The central government’s role could be to mandate the standard to be followed for higher education institutions.
Rejuvenate the schooling system
While the integrity of a national or State-level examination is in the spotlight, what has certainly been missed out in the public discourse is the gradual ruination of the school system which is responsible for creating the citizens of tomorrow. With the emergence of national-level common entrance examinations for every professional course or university course, school-leaving examinations have become redundant and there are now ‘dummy’ schools. Instead, coaching centres have mushroomed with the sole purpose of preparing students for these national examinations.
The growth of the coaching industry has damaged the schooling system insidiously and relentlessly. This trend has to be stemmed and the value of schools restored by introducing a percentage of school-leaving marks to the final score of the candidates’ entrance examination. This was factored in the entrance examination to the Indian Institutes of Technology some years ago but was abandoned without debate. If we cannot safeguard merit, based on good school education, our schooling system will decay even further. Standards of academic competency, hard work and good values that are built up at the school level can never be achieved at the time of higher studies, when a student is much older and is poised for the world of work. This is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently.
Vrinda Sarup is former Secretary, Education, Government of India. K. Sujatha Rao is former Secretary, Health, Government of India
