K. Radhakrishnan, former Chairman, ISRO
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The seven-member high level committee to reform the working of the National Testing Agency (NTA) constituted by the Ministry of Education convened for its first meeting on June 24 evening in New Delhi.
The NTA has been under the scanner after the paper leak controversy around the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical undergraduates broke out. Subsequently, other entrance exams like UGC-NET were scrapped after they had taken place due to “lack of integrity”.
The committee is discussing how to set up a solid process for conducting various entrance examinations end to end, a top source from the Ministry told The Hindu.
Headed by K. Radhakrishnan, former Chairman, ISRO and Chairman of the Board of Governors at IIT-Kanpur, the committee also includes K. Ramamurthy from IIT-Madras; Randeep Guleria, former director of AIIMS, Delhi; B.J. Rao, Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Hyderabad; Pankaj Bansal, board member of Karmayogi Bharat, Aditya Mittal from IIT-Delhi and Govind Jaiswal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Education.
Commenting on the issue, V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT-Madras, said, “Prof. Ramamurthy has been associated with conducting Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) from 2004 to 2006 in leadership positions. Also, Dr. K.R. Radhakrishnan is well versed with the IIT system and the manner in which examinations should be conducted.”
In two months, which might offer the time for ten sittings, the committee is supposed to come up with a clear manual to fix a data security protocol to prevent leaking of question papers.
The committee is also examining the processes by which question papers get printed, how printers are onboarded and how to train staff to follow due processes to minimise external participation, the source said.
The Education Ministry source quoted above said that the committee is looking at adding a data security vertical in the NTA organogram, and also said that the implementation of a transparent processes will require organisational restructuring of the NTA.
“It will be very important for the committee to go into the root of the matter, how did the question papers leak in the first place,” Prof. Kamakoti said, adding that the identification would help to plug the gaps.
The committee is also expected to examine different modes of conducting examinations.
While the JEE (Mains) for qualifying for engineering courses and the JEE (Advanced) for IIT admissions are both computer-based tests conducted online, NEET-UG has been conducted in pen-paper Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) mode. The JEE (Mains) are organised by the NTA while the JEE (Advanced) is organised by the IITs.
NEET-UG had up to 24 lakh students appearing for the exams at one go in pen and paper OMR mode.
Prof. Kamakoti said that, in India, it would currently be impossible to conduct a computer-based test in the online mode for more than three lakh students at once. This is due to the lack of adequate infrastructure to taken on the online load for lakhs of students at once.
The committee will also look into curtailing public interactions of professors who set the paper. “In case of JEE, for instance, professors who are involved in setting papers are curtailed from giving any public science talks till exams are over. Similar points may be looked into for other exams too,” he said.
