The Common University Entrance Test to Central universities has been riddled with technical glitches, leading to criticism from students and universities about the format and the delay in the admission process. UGC Chairman M. Jagadesh Kumar says these were logistical issues that will be handled better next time. Excerpts:
Universities are concerned about the delay in the admission process due to the CUET schedule as well as technical glitches and cancellations during the examination conducted for undergraduate courses. How are you addressing those issues?
The academic sessions are delayed because of COVID, and we are trying to go back to the original academic session slowly. As far as CUET [Common University Entrance Test] is concerned, if I was a student I would expect the centre to be glitch-free so that I can focus on the exam and no other factors that pop up, which happened in several cases. But look at the scale of the exam: it is one of the largest entrance tests with 14.9 lakh students, which is next only to NEET. But NEET and JEE are conducted over a three-day window and the number of subjects are also limited. But here we have 27 domain and 20 language subjects, 12 Indian language subjects also and one general paper. The main challenge is identifying centres with working computers and Internet connection. Based on the experience and lessons we have learnt, we are confident that in the coming year there would be no glitches. Though we assign test centres to students only after checking the computer system during a mock drill, in some cases the computers failed on the day of the exam. That is why we gave students a window between August 25 to August 30. We sent information to students through SMS, voice mail and email if we were cancelling an exam at a centre, but some students might have not seen those messages and found the centre closed on the day of the exam. These are logistic issues, which can be resolved through proper planning and the lessons we are learning from the experience.
How many students were affected due to cancellations and other issues out of the total 14.9 lakh. When is the result for CUET-UG likely?
During the last window [for students affected due to cancellations] we expect nearly 1 lakh students to appear. This includes all students who faced cancellations due to glitches or genuinely could not reach the exam centre on time. All genuine cases are being handled. Our goal is to announce the CUET-UG result between September 7 and 10.
There is also criticism from certain Vice-Chancellors such as the JNU’s that a multiple-choice question based exam is not appropriate for PG admissions. How would you respond to that criticism?
This debate about entrance exam is there for a long time. There is no ideal entrance examination. What we need to see is the scale at which we are admitting students. We are one of the largest education systems in the world. When we carry out admissions, they have to be bias-free. Bias comes from human involvement. For example, if I am correcting the same essay type answers, fatigue sets in and I may give marks differentially to other students. Therefore, from the point of providing justice to students in terms of objectivity of the admission process, machine-driven test is the best. All over the world, it is agreed. Can we use machine-driven MCQ questions across disciplines? Of course, there can never be a single answer to that. You will have both sides arguing either way. But we have to have a middle path. There are also four types of MCQs — recall-type based on numbers and formulae, concept-based, those based on application of concept and fourth is synthesis of info that is closer to essay-type answers. We can’t undermine the importance of MCQ format. In future, we will have artificial intelligence-driven software which can actually read text-based answers too.
A prestigious college like St. Stephen’s has said that they will give 85% weightage to CUET core and 15% to interviews. Is that permissible?
At the UG and PG level, the issue of discrimination is an issue. If I am coming from a rural background and I am not able to communicate well in English, it can be quite intimidating. So, if you want to have a bias-free process, it should be based on the CUET score. We have told all the Central Universities that admissions to UG and PG courses should be based solely on the CUET score. It is compulsory for everyone.
What is the goal of CUET?
The advantage of having one national test is that students from across the country will have an opportunity to attempt CUET and try to join some of the best universities across the country. It provides a level-playing field even when they are coming from a university in a rural background. 45% of our universities and 60% of colleges are in rural areas and if these students face a national-level examination it will also provide feedback on how they have to improve. We also have so many State Boards that give higher scores as compared to others in the Class XII exam and this will remove that disparity among States. Even if I didn’t do well in my Board exam, I can do well in CUET. Students who earlier had to write multiple exams for admission to various universities will now have to appear only for one exam.
